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Shin Urutoraman
Shin Ultraman
Japan 2022
produced by Hideaki Anno, Takehiko Aoki, Minami Ichikawa, Tomoya Nishino, Takayuki Tsukagoshi for Tsuburaya Productions, Khara Corporation, Cine Bazar/Toho
directed by Shinji Higuchi
starring Takumi Saitoh, Masami Nagasawa, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Daiki Arioka, Akari Hayami, Tetsushi Tanaka, Kyusaku Shimada, Ryo Iwamatsu, Toru Masuoka, Keishi Nagatsuka, Hajime Yamazaki, Masami Horiuchi, Go Riju, Soko Wada, Yutaka Takenouchi, Bin Furuya, Hideaki Anno, Issey Takahashi (voice), Koichi Yamadera (voice), Koji Yamamoto (voice), Kenjiro Tsuda (voice), Edward L. Holland, Katsuya Kobayashi, Yukio Tsukamoto
written by Hideaki Anno, music by Shiro Sagisu
Ultraman
review by Mike Haberfelner
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As Japan is pretty much overrun by giant monsters that can't be fought
with conventional weapons, the gouvernment has formed a special monster
fighting unit, the SSSP, a group of specialists who develop new weaponry
to defeat this new threat. But even these guys are at their wits' end
eventually - so enter Ultraman, a mysterious metal giant who battles
monsters on humankind's behalf. Of course, soon all world gouvernments try
to get hold of Ultraman ... and then aliens attack. The first attacks are
fairly conventional, nothing Ultraman can't handle - but then there's
alien Mefilas (voiced by Koji Yamamoto), who to demonstrate his power
creates a second, evil Ultraman, then grows a member of the SSSP, Asami
(Masami Nagasawa) to giant size, and asks for absolute power. One ought to
mention here Ultraman is secretly a member of the SSSP, Kaminaga (Takumi
Saitoh), merged with an alien symbiont, and the whole team soon finds out
the power of Mefilas originates from his Beta Box, so when Mefilas and
Ultraman fight, the SSSP somehow manages to steal the Beta Box, and
Mefilas gives up and promises to leave earth (and keeps his promise) in
return of the Beta Box. With Mefilas gone, the next alien visiting earth
is Zoffy (voiced by Koichi Yamadera), a being from Ultraman's home planet
who claims earth has become too dangerous to be allowed to exist and thus
installs a destruction machine in earth's orbit. Ultraman tries to destroy
the machine, but to no effect. But what plays in the hands of our planet
is that the machine takes a few days to develop its full potential, so
it's up to the specialists from the SSSP to drop it into another dimension
before it can cause any actual destruction ... From the team
that gave us the brilliant Shin
Godzilla (that movie is actually mentioned in the opening
credits), Shin Ultraman is pretty much similar in tone, inasmuch as
it mixes loving references to the source material with satire and outright
comedy. Unfortunately, Shin Ultraman isn't quite as good as the
earlier movie as it spins a tale that's a bit too complex and also
repetitive to really keep one at the edge of one's seat throughout.
There's of course still enough monster destruction, fights and action
involved, so the film keeps one entertained, mostly, it's just a tad too
long and could have done with a more streamlined script. It's still worth
a watch, especially for genre fans as in many of its monster scenes it's
just so lovingly old school, it's just not a masterpiece, not even a genre
masterpiece.
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