Anno Hideaki, creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion set off remaking nostalgic Japanese properties into movies first with Cutie Honey and then Shin Godzilla which I remember more for Ishihara Satomi's horrible English. Now he has brought us Shin Ultraman, based on the long running series about a dude who can transform into a giant alien to fight giant aliens in rubber suits.
Ultraman is probably the first Japanese property I became a fan of, especially Kaettekita Ultraman or Return of Ultraman. The show brings up a lot of nostalgic feelings for me and yes I have even sung the theme song in Japan. I know there are many different Ultraman shows so I have no idea which one Shin Ultraman is based on.
The start if Shin Ultraman is pretty decent. We have a recap about the sudden appearance of kaiju in Japan and the formation of an organisation led by Nishijima Hidetoshi to deal with the kaiju, the SSSP. The SSSP is more like a bunch of people on laptops observer kaiju and ordering the armies around with a camera which is way too close and claustrophobic.
Ultraman appears and we get decent action and I was feeling good about the movie. The effects looked retro including the sets that Ultraman fought in. While the SSSP no longer flew planes and had guns as long as there were kaiju for Ultraman to kick ass, it was all good.
The Shin Ultraman starts getting weird. It turns into a crappy Japanese government trying to deal with alien life forms other than Ultraman story. It gets even weirder when something happens to Nagasawa Masami and I did not get the tone of the story at all. The CG for the last two actions scenes sucked after the nostalgia of the first action scene. There are PS2 games with much better CG that this movie.
In the end while I get what Anno Hideaki is trying to do which is an moving alien contact movie about an alien who wants to be human I don't think he did a good job and he shouldn't have wasted the Ultraman license on it. I would have been happy with a modern Ultraman with nostalgic paint instead of someone trying to be too clever. Disappointing. Do not watch. I am scared for Shin Kamen Rider which is Anno Hideaki's next release.
I had my full expectation towards Shin Ultraman and I kind of disappointing on how the movie played out. I haven't watch Shinji Higuchi's Gamera trilogy yet but his directing in Shin Ultraman felt a bit messy, it felt like he's trying to copied Hideaki Anno's style of directing too much. And Hideaki Anno's writing in Shin Ultraman felt disjoint, I did felt the same way on his Evangelion 3.0+1.0 movie. It delt with political and life threatening events, but sometimes it felt cheap and it doesn't felt "epic" at all, even some of the newer TV series felt more "epic" than this. Although I not a huge fan of 2004 Ultraman The Next movie, but it has its own charm and more memorable than Shin Ultraman is.
ReplyDeleteFaiz Ikari is right. It was directed by the same guy who directed Shingeki no kyojin LA. I surprised it wasn't as bad tbh
ReplyDeleteMy memory of Ultraman Returns is hazy and I never really watch any Ultraman franchise after that. So I approach Shin Ultraman solely based on my expectation from Shin Godzilla. The first public 15 minutes preview doesn't impress me, and the whole movie seems like they're chopped off from 1 season of live-action drama and put together to fit 2-hour duration. Many reviewers and fans defended it. not sure what they're smoking.
ReplyDeleteI did not expect Shin Godzilla to be good at first though. Maybe it's better because of direct collaboration? Anno can be hit or miss. I realize this early after Cutie Honey (or even earlier with Eva movie).
@Anon: Shingeki movies were so bad....
ReplyDelete@myfairx: I have not seen the Eva movies. Are they really that bad?
@Faiz: I don't think we can really say Hideaki Anno is a good writer after this and he may lucked out with Eva.
@Akiramike: He's more of an artist than a writer. Maybe Eva works because Hideaki Anno on his worst state of mind when he's making Eva, and Eva influence a lot from other mecha anime series like Ideon and Gundam.
ReplyDeleteThe new Eva movies are quite good, but it's not as deep as the original series, it's more into popcorn fun and blockbuster type of movies.
I did had mixed feeling after seeing Shin Kamen Rider trailer, it looks kind of bland. Kamen Rider Black Sun by Kazuya Shiraishi looks better IMO.
about the EVA earlier movie, nothing really impresses me either. TBH even the original EVA while awesome as a whole still felt disjointed sometimes. EVA's new movie destroy my interest altogether when they remove my favorite part: Asuka's first fight on-top-of carriers. How they decided to remove such epic visuals is beyond me
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