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.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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