While not as familiar as Godzilla, Ultraman was a huge hit in Japan in the 60s and has a continuing fandom to this day. When I was very young in the 60s my dad and I would go to church and then to my grandparents house. They had a TV, probably the first I ever saw, as we would watch Ultraman before my mom came by later for the Sunday family lunch. So I do have some nostalgia for this character and was happy to see some of the references that are al over this new reboot.
Unlike Shin Godzilla, this was not a hardcore, serious reimagining of the franchise but more light-hearted. Also unlike Shin Godzilla it doesn't really work. The story follows the TV show lore with some nicely updated elements but it really goes all over the place. It starts with monsters attacking then moves into some sort of alien taking over the world by discrediting Ultraman, to another alien going to take over the work in another way to a giant robot spaceship showing up and about to destroy the planet. It's really a mess and too long.
The cinematography has been given high marks and I honestly don't know why. 40% of the film takes place in a board room where people talk constantly and don't do anything while camera angle wildly change and they seem to be using webcams and surveillance cameras to do it. So much is shot through legs, chairs on the floor, at woman's feet... it is really hard to figure out what is happening. The characters have no real connection to each other and Ultraman love of humanity seems to have no basis.
I HAVE to talk about to 2 super weird things you can't miss if you watch the film. The lead woman out of nowhere slaps her own butt hard enough to break a hip throughout the movies... for.. motivation? And the human form of Ultraman smells her for some reason, she look uncomfortable and she should he even smalls between her legs! WTF?
The fight scenes, monsters (who disappear after the aliens arrive) and other effects shots are well filmed. The look of the hero is a nice update but the movie itself is too rambling to hold your attention fr the over 2 hour runtime.
Super fans of the TV show and other versions of Ultraman will surely get a lot to chew on some scenes are shot by shot from the TV show, there are graphic, sound and musical elements taken directly from the 60s as well and they might be fun to spot.
2 comments:
Wow, who would have thought someone could screw up Ultraman? I don't remember watching him as a kid, though I know he was on, know about the 'beta capsule' and his limited time on Earth, etc. The shows had some great monsters over the years and like Shazam, had a whole family at one point. I have to get around to watching the Kamen Rider film which I think is on Netflix. Those shows are good fun, too.
I et the nostalgia part of this but the weird camera angles and unconnected storylines and foot and other fetishes were NOT what I remembered from my childhood!
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