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In mid flight, fighter pilot Maki's (Tetsuya Bessho) jet plane crashes
with a meteor. Surprisingly enough, he comes out of the crash not only
alive but unharmed safe for a few bruises here and there. And suddenly,
some organisation within the military led by scientist Sara Mizuhara
(Kyoko Toyama) shows an unhealthy interest in him ... up to the point
where they kidnap him.
As a matter of fact, another soldier, submarine captain Udo (Kenya
Osumi) had a similar accident, also survived, but after a while turned
into a monster, a monster that is able to shift its shape from gruesome to
even more gruesome, who can absorb characteristics of any other lifeform,
who all the time grows in size, and who's simply evil ... but what's
worse, the monster - from now on dubbed The One - has escaped. (Oh
by the way, need I mention that Udo, the guy who became the One, was Sara
Mizuhara's fiancé.)
Now the military figures that the same doesn't happen again with Maki,
why not simply kill him. But before they can kill Maki, the One comes back
for a fight, and spontaneously, Maki turns into superhero Ultraman (that's
what the meteor has done to him), and saves everybody's life.
The story takes its usual course, with the One growing ever bigger and
Maki/Ultraman (who can also grow att will) being the only defense of Japan
against the monster, but the military distrusts him - all except Sara
Mizuhara of course. But in the end, a giant Ultraman can defeat a giant
One, and destroy him for good.
Now one would think the old-fashioned Ultraman from the
1960's battling a monster in a 2004-film, that would be (sonscious) camp
galore, just one big hoot to watch from beginning to end.
Unfortunately no such luck. For some reason this film is devoid of all
and any irony, the special effects are a competent mix of CGI and good old
men in monstersuits, and at the same time dead-boring, and any attempt to
camp things up was dilligently avoided. Instead a cheesy story about
Maki's terminally ill son was tagged on, and Ultraman's origin story is
given much room (much more than it needed), meaning that in the first
third (or the first half hour) of the movie, Ultraman does not show up at
all.
Of course, a giant monster destroying a city will always charm
montermovie-fans like myself, but to save the whole movie, that's too
little too late.
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find Ultraman at adultvideouniverse.com
