When kaiju begin to terrorize the globe, the SSSP is mobilized to assess and neutralize the threat. The latest monster might be too much for them to handle, but luckily, help arrives in the form of Ultraman, a giant robot man who kicks kaiju ass. Little does the SSSP know, one of their own team members is actually Ultraman’s secret identity.
While I’m not well-versed in Ultraman, I have seen a few episodes of the original TV series, which this is a reboot of. I don’t know how die-hard fans will react to it, but for me, Shin Ultraman checked all the giant monster mashing boxes. It was a good mix of old school kaiju battling and 21st century CGI. I think the best thing about it was the fact that many of the monsters, while obviously CGI, were rendered to look like a guy in a clunky rubber suit. Shit like that puts a goddamned smile on my stupid face.
Also, most monster mashes make you wait till the very end to see the kaiju squaring off. This one gives Ultraman a new foe to fight every half hour or so, so there’s always some big threat looming to help keep you invested. (The monster battles are spaced so evenly that it almost feels like you’re binge watching four episodes of the series.) The monsters include an invisible creature that shoots electricity from its horn, a lizard that has a drill for a head, an evil version of Ultraman, and a giant space weapon. Each one is a little different than the last, which helps give every fight a little different flavor.
The most impressive thing is that the human drama is fairly decent. Let’s face it. No one watches these things for the acting or plot. However, I did appreciate the way director Shinji (Shin Godzilla) Higuchi used rapid-fire editing to keep the dialogue scenes flowing and used odd camera angles to make them more interesting from a visual standpoint. Sometimes, little touches like that make all the difference and help separate the good monster mashes from the mediocre ones.
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