TUBI CONTINUED… ULTRAMAN ZERO SIDE STORY: KILLER THE BEATSTAR (2011) ***

One year after the events of The Revenge of Belial, Ultra Force Zero (Ultraman Zero, Jean-Bot, Glenfire, and Mirror Knight) go to pay Princess Esmerelda (Tao Tsuchiya) a visit.  Before they even get a chance to play catch-up, she and Jean-Bot are kidnapped by a rogue robotic planet-like sphere that’s on a collision course with a heavily populated planet.  Rei (Shota Minami) and Hyuga (Hiroyuki Konishi) answer her distress call, and soon after, Ultra Force Zero also makes the scene to do battle with a giant robot army.  It doesn’t take long before a mysterious entity drains them of their superpowers, and they must do battle against an evil version of Jean-Bot called Jean-Killer.

The Revenge of Belial was probably my least favorite of these Ultraman movies, but it at least looked cinematic.  Ultraman Zero Side Story:  Killer the Beatstar just looks like two episodes of the TV show slapped together.  (Which makes sense because it kinda is.)  Coming off the heels of my least favorite entry, I went into this Straight-to-Video sequel with some amount of trepidation.  Fortunately, this one has a lot more heart and is loads more fun than The Revenge of Belial.

The monster battles and Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robot matches are a blast.  I liked Gomora’s dust-up with a trio of robots, including one called “King Joe” who looks like he has two trashcan-shaped dicks.  Speaking of crotch-centric robots, there’s another one that shoots flames from its bathing suit area.  I’m not sure just who thought up all these dick-bots, but may the Lord bless them and keep them forever.

On the downside, Glenspark’s antics are still pretty annoying, but at least his space pirate buddies are nowhere to be found this time out.  The saxophone-heavy score is kinda odd too and sounds like it would be a better fit in a ‘90s Skinamax movie than a newfangled Tokusatsu show.  Still, there is plenty of good shit here.  And by “good shit”, I am specifically referring to the scene where the bad robot finds his humanity and begins to cry.  Is it corny?  Fuck yeah!  However, that’s the kind of corny crap I live for.

AKA:  Ultraman Zero Gaiden:  Killer the Beatstar.

TUBI CONTINUED… ULTRA GALAXY LEGEND SIDE STORY: ULTRAMAN ZERO VS. DARKLOPS ZERO (2010) ***

ZAP SPACY crewmembers Rei (Shota Minami) and Hyuga (Hiroyuki Konishi) answer a distress call coming from inside a mysterious wormhole.  They get sucked into the vortex and soon learn it’s a pathway to the Multiverse.  It seems the Multiverse is being threatened by a race of aliens who are using an evil version of Ultraman Zero called Darklops Zero as muscle.  The real Ultraman Zero eventually shows up to join the fight and must square off against not only Darklops Zero, but an evil army of Ultraman clones.

Despite the potential inherent in utilizing the Multiverse concept, Ultra Galaxy Legend Side Story:  Ultraman Zero vs. Darklops Zero doesn’t set out to reinvent the wheel.  Instead, it opts to deliver a breezy good time.  I find it interesting that the Ultraman series was doing the whole Multiverse thing a good decade before the MCU and DC flicks.  Sure, maybe it doesn’t explore the Multiverse idea to its fullest, and there may have been a missed opportunity or two along the way, but it is fun to see Ultraman Zero and Rei fighting and/or joining up with slightly different Multiverse versions of themselves.

After so much newfangled CGI in The Revenge of Belial, it was nice to see some good old-fashioned monster mashing for a change.  The highlight is when Rei’s pet monster, Gomora squares off against its evil robotic Multiverse counterpart.  The fights between Zero and the evil Ultramen are decent too and keeps the pace and energy going at a steady clip.  Sure, there are still a few of the requisite greenscreen battles here, but even they feel a little more grounded this time out.  

All in all, Ultraman Zero vs. Darklops Zero delivers the goods.  It’s slightly longer than an hour and hits the ground running and never stops.  Any Ultraman fan worth their salt should enjoy it.

TUBI CONTINUED… ULTRAMAN ZERO: THE REVENGE OF BELIAL (2010) * ½

The villainous Belial is back (this time sporting a badass crimson trench coat) and up to his old tricks again.  He travels to a distant galaxy with his Darklops army in tow seeking total domination.  The Ultramen can only afford to send one Guardian of Light to stop him and Ultraman Zero volunteers for the job.  He arrives on a planet overrun by monsters and almost instantly runs out of energy.  He then must merge with a young freedom fighter and team up with a space princess to stop Belial once and for all.

After a great prequel (Ultraman Mebius:  Ghost Rebirth) and a strong follow-up (Mega Monster Battle:  Ultra Galaxy:  The Movie), The Revenge of Belial is a massive letdown.  After having so many Ultramen battling in the previous entries, I guess they thought it would be a nice change of pace to have a more stripped-down approach.  While Zero is an OK Ultraman, he just can’t quite carry a movie on his own.  It doesn’t help that his kid sidekick is annoying or that the plot is so jumbled that a narrator has to occasionally step in to make sense of things.

The fact is there’s some really lame stuff in this one.  Zero’s run-in with a boatload of space pirates is painfully juvenile, and the CGI backgrounds also look kind of chintzy this time around.  (Like the one that occurs on the Mirror Planet.)  The greenscreen backgrounds just don’t have the same weight or charm of a good old-fashioned model city, if you ask me.  Zero’s new friends (who include a robot that talks like a pirate, a “Mirror Knight”, and a jet that turns into a robot a la Transformers) are kind of weak too.

Belial still remains a worthy adversary though.  I liked his new look, and his fight with Zero is solid.  (The part where Zero gives him a super pile driver is cool.)  His kaiju form during the final battle is also quite snazzy.  It’s a shame that the movie he inhabits leaves him lost in space.

AN EVENING WITH KITTEN (1983) ***

Kitten Natividad comes out of a trashcan dressed as a cat in a skintight body suit.  Then, we get a flashback to her as a flat-chested homeless person dreaming of being a movie star.  When she drinks a beverage called “Incredible Bulk”, she has an Incredible Hulk-style scene where her boobs burst out of her shirt. 

How’s that that for a superhero origin story?

Kitten then appears on stage and does a series of sexy stripteases (including taking a bubble bath in an oversized martini glass).  Meanwhile, the guys in the audience fantasize about her.  One dude imagines himself in yellow face doing karate when Kitten comes along and knocks a tree over with her tits.  The next audience member imagines flashing her on the street, and she sicks her dog on him.  Another guy fantasizes her as a giant in the streets of Hollywood.  She even puts The Brown Derby restaurant on her head and wears it as a hat.  (I didn’t know how much I needed “Kitten Kong” in my life till I saw this scene.)  The next patron imagines he’s a tennis player and Kitten cheers him on.  Another pictures himself as a king with Kitten as his queen.  He paces back and forth, waiting for her to give birth to… Uh… A dragon hand puppet?!?  The following audience member sees himself as Dracula, but he gets lockjaw right when he’s about to bite into her massive mammaries.  Another one has a dream he’s fishing and hooks Kitten as a sexy mermaid.  Ironically, the game warden makes him throw her back because she’s too small.  Finally, the last guy has a silent movie-inspired dream where he rescues Kitten from being tied to the train tracks.  (This scene features some rapid-fire editing reminiscent of Kitten’s work with Russ Meyer, which makes sense as director, Les Barnum was his assistant on a couple of films.)

An Evening with Kitten is only a half-hour long, which is probably the ideal length for this sort of thing.  I’m not sure if they could’ve possibly sustained the concept any longer without it getting stale.  (Or annoying.)  Kitten is obviously sexy and a gifted comedienne.  I think An Evening with Kitten was her way of reminding the audience of the latter, but at the same time, show her boobs just enough so no one felt shortchanged.  I’m not saying any of this is actually laugh out loud funny, but it’s totally worth it for her many fans.  Even if you never heard of her, the Incredible Hulk and King Kong parodies are enough to make it highly recommended.

TUBI CONTINUED… MEGA MONSTER BATTLE: ULTRA GALAXY: THE MOVIE (2009) *** ½

The evil Ultraman Belial escapes from space prison.  He gets revenge on the Ultramen by stealing their beacon of hope, The Plasma Spark and destroying their home world, The Land of Light.  He then goes to the monster graveyard planet and resurrects an army of dead monsters to help him take over the universe.  Ultraman Mebius escapes the fray and finds Rei, a human pilot who has alien blood that allows him to control monsters.  Together, they team up to take Belial down.  When they don’t prove powerful enough, they turn to the galaxy’s last hope, the young, undisciplined, and potentially dangerous Ultraman Zero for help.

The scenes that take place on The Land of Light are very cool.  It’s neat to see the Ultramen going about their daily routine, training the next generation of Ultraman, and standing at attention in case of an emergency.  Previous Ultraman movies had upwards of seven or eight Ultramen.  This one has hundreds. 

Belial is a tough customer too.  He looks like a cross between Ultron, Carnage, and the monster from Split Second. The fight he has with several Ultramen on the side of a building features great choreography, dizzying camerawork and is as good as anything in a Spider-Man movie. 

True to its title, there are lots of monsters in this one.  Although many appear in CGI form, they’ve been given the look, weight, and feel of a traditional man in a rubber suit monster, which is frankly, awesome.  And the shit really hits the fan for the Ultramen when the creatures all combine with Belial to make one supreme monster. 

Mega Monster Battle:  Ultra Galaxy:  The Movie is perhaps missing some of the dramatic meat that made the prequel, Ghost Rebirth a classic example of Tokusatsu.  It might also have more supporting characters than necessary.  However, it moves like lightning and there is no shortage of badass monster brawls here.  One such large scale fight almost plays like a man in rubber monster suit version of the battle in Braveheart.  Because of that, it’s a hell of a lot of fun and remains massively entertaining throughout.

AKA:  Mega Monster Battle:  Ultra Galaxy Legends:  The Movie.

TUBI CONTINUED… ULTRAMAN MEBIUS SIDE STORY: GHOST REBIRTH (2009) ****

Ultraman Mebius Side Story:  Ghost Rebirth answers a great question that I never even thought to ask:  What happens to all the souls of the monsters that Ultraman and company defeat and kill?  Apparently, they migrate to a “Monster Graveyard” where they are absorbed into the soil of a far-off planet.

Ultraman Taro and Ultraman Ace investigate a disturbance at the graveyard and uncover a plot by some monsters to revive their fallen dead Emperor.  Ultraman Mebius tries to give back-up but gets ambushed by monster in an asteroid belt.  Meanwhile, Ace and Taro are captured and held as bait for Mebius.  A shady robot named Mechazam offers to lend him a hand, but can he be trusted?

Ghost Rebirth combines all the familiar themes of the series into one great package.  Ideas like friendship, loyalty, and perseverance in the face of danger are once again explored, and quite warmly too.  Mechazam is a cool antihero and is a nice change of pace from the goody two-shoes Ultramen.  That said, Mebius actually goes to Hell and back to save his friends in this one, so maybe there’s something to be said for being a goody two-shoes. 

Some of the green screened backgrounds are obvious, and the backgrounds have a tendency to feel a bit samey.  I kind of missed Ultraman stomping through the model cities too.  However, that beef is small potatoes because for me, this is one of the most rousing Ultraman spectacles I’ve seen.  The clashes between the Ultramen and the monsters, along with a shocking betrayal makes this the most dramatically sound adventure yet, even if the CGI is a little inconsistent.  

It’s the unlikely alliance and eventual bond that grows between Mebius and Mechazam that gives it some dramatic heft and makes it soar above its predecessors.  It’s proof that you can make a movie with complex themes about people overcoming their differences in the face of adversity within the confines of a rubber suit monster mashing extravaganza.  In short, Ghost Rebirth renewed my faith in the genre.

AKA:  Ultraman Mebius Gaiden:  Ghost Reverse.  AKA:  Ultraman Mebius Gaiden:  Ghost Rebirth.

TUBI CONTINUED… ULTRAMAN MEBIUS SIDE STORY: ARMORED DARKNESS (2008) ** ½

Members of the GUYS team get sucked into the “Darknesphere”, an all-encompassing black hole where a villainous monster lives.  Once inside, they learn that Ultraman Hikari has been overtaken by the creature and his energy is being used to power a living suit of evil armor.  It’s then up to the GUYS team to join forces with Ultraman Mebius to save their friend. 

This was originally a two-part special, and it’s easy to see why it fell under the “Side Story” heading as there isn’t quite enough meat here for a feature length flick.  Still, it remains a rather straightforward adventure as the plot is to the point and the pacing moves at a reasonable rate.  The fight scenes aren’t particularly grand (which is a given since this is essentially an overlong TV episode after all), but they have their moments and are all solid for the most part. 

The titular villain does cut a striking image though.  Looking like a suit of armor on steroids and wielding a giant lightning powered trident, he sure does give the Ultramen a run for their money.  The final battle where Hikari and Mebius join forces to become one superpowered Ultraman is fun and together, they give Armored Darkness a pretty good butt kicking.  I just wish he had a better vehicle for his talents than just a two-part TV show.  

Unfortunately, the stuff with the GUYS team flying their spacecraft around isn’t nearly as engaging or memorable, but I did like the one scene with the downed ship that blatantly stole from The Empire Strikes Back.  Overall, Ultraman Mebius Side Story:  Armored Darkness is kind of slight and inessential.  The flip side is that it gives you a quick Ultraman fix in half the usual time and delivers what you came to see (namely cool monsters getting the snot rocked out of them by Ultraman).  Because of that, it’s hard to be too critical.

AKA:  Ultraman Mebius Gaiden:  Armored Darkness.