Ultraman Rising (2024) Directed by Shannon Tindle

Ultraman rising is reboot of sorts of the Ultraman franchise as an animated movie. The animation is very good as is the sound and direction. Likes most current films, particularly animated ones the story has something to be desired. 

In this version o Ultraman, Ultraman is the father of a small family fight kaju that attack Japan making somewhat of a absent dad. His kid grows up and he and his wife grow apart. The young boy moves to the United States and became a egotistical but excellent baseball player. He comes back to Japan to play for a Japanese team but also to take up his responsibilities as the new Ultraman. He isn't the best in the role and one of the monsters dies trying to get it's egg back after it was stolen by the villain who wants to kill all kaju after the death of his family. Ultraman find the egg, which hatches and he is no charged with raising a giant monster and trying to continue his baseball career. 

This sets up conflict between the hero and the villain who are at odds at what to do about the giant monster attacks. He also meets a reporter who becomes his love interest and begins to patch up his relationship with father. His mother "disappeared" many year before and is assumed dead. 

Sadly this all works out in ways you can easily predict including a post credit sequence. I was about to say as the credit rolled that at least we didn't find out the mother was actually still alive but... sequel set up. 

It's fun enough and visually interesting but dragged a bit especially you know nothing really out of the box is going to happen. Oddly enough I found the live action mess of a fim Shin Ultraman more fun because it was such a train wreck of multiple storylines and foot fetishes. 

Shin Ultraman (2022) directed by Shinji Higuchi

 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.