After recently enjoying Shin Ultraman and being a fan of the original series, I thought this column would be a good opportunity to catch up on some of the Ultraman movies. Fortunately for me, Tubi has scads of them. So, prepare yourself. The next week or so is going to be Ultraman-centric.
An underground monster with the unlikely name of Cotton-Poppe is stealing gold and eating it. (Including an Ultraman statue!) Team Mydo (who use a gas station as their cover) goes into action in their jet Skyfish to investigate. Turns out, Cotton-Poppe is just using the gold to power up the big-brained Alien Benzene that’s out to destroy Earth. Meanwhile, Ultraman Zearth comes to Earth but unlike other iterations of the character, he has poor aim and suffers from OCD! Every time he gets a little dirt or muck on his hands, he has to compulsively wash them!
Ultraman Zearth is short and sweet (under an hour long) and has more comedy elements than your typical Ultraman series. Because of the shortened running time, it sort of feels more like an episode of the TV show than an actual movie. That’s part of the charm though. It moves like lightning and has no fat on it whatsoever, something that’s kind of essential for a Japanese giant rubber monster movie.
I also liked that this Ultraman is a germaphobe, which gives him an interesting and surprisingly human weakness. Not enough Japanese giant spacemen have mental disorders if you ask me. Having him use his electric toothbrush to turn into Ultraman was a neat touch too.
Sure, Ultraman Zearth isn’t perfect. While the original Ultraman theme remains a banger, some of the music in the final battle is grating as hell. (It’s just someone saying, “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” on repeat.) The shitty music kind of prevents the finale from really taking flight as the monster mashing in the third act is of the solid, if unspectacular variety. That said, there’s still a lot of silly fun here, and the kooky touches help to distinguish it from the (many) other iterations of the franchise.
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