Ultraman

While superhero films have risen to prominence on these shores relatively recently – I consider the original Superman film an aberration rather than the norm and the first glimmering of the current superhero craze coming with Burton's Batman – costumed heroes have long been a staple of Japanese film with one of the biggest and longest running franchises belonging to Ultraman. If people know the genre on these shores at all they generally equate the movement with the Power Rangers but there is a much broader – and higher quality – range of material out there than the re-edited kiddie fare would suggest.

The current Ultraman film marked a successful big budget re-launch of the franchise which is currently in production on a television miniseries with big name directors – Takashi Miike, for one – involved. This film was also my first exposure to the character so if you're looking for me to set the film in the broader context of the franchise that's not going to happen, I can comment only on how it functions as a free standing film. And the verdict? It takes itself a mite too seriously for a film that features a man in obviously plastic body armor striking bad martial arts poses while battling another man in a rubber lizard costume and is emotionally manipulative in a manner heavy handed and clumsy enough to make even Jerry Bruckheimer blush but it also features some fantastic action sequences and solid technical values, particularly when it comes to blending different special effects techniques. Ultraman is a bit of a mixed bag: not quite goofy enough to turn off the brain and just ride along, not well written enough to treat as a ‘serious' super hero film but, nonetheless, definitely not without its charms.

Maki Shunachi is a fighter pilot in the Japanese Self Defense Force. Despite being a talented pilot living out his childhood dream of flying Maki has announced his intention to retire so that he can spend more time at home with his young son who is stricken with a genetic blood disorder. On what should be one of his final nights of duty an unidentified object enters Japanese airspace and Maki is sent to investigate. When his wing man encounters engine problems and has to pull away Maki continues on, flying into a strange fireball, glowing bright red, that seems to pull him into a strange, alternate dimension. Though he crashes his plane, Maki emerges seemingly unscathed and returns home to start his new domestic life.

But wait! All is not well in Japan! Maki's strange glowing object is not the first to appear. Military scientist Udo encountered a similar blue orb beneath the sea, an encounter that slowly transformed him into a grotesque, violent monster that absorbs other creatures to gain their powers and is bent on the destruction of Maki followed by all of humanity. And the army? The army fears Maki will undergo a similar transformation and wants both him and Udo dead, but not before using Maki as bait to lure Udo into a trap. Maki's transformation, of course, is not into a monster but into Ultraman.

The film stars slowly with the opening act – other than a brief opening sequence showing Udo's escape from a military laboratory – devoted entirely to establishing Maki's relationship with his family and the encounter with the strange red fireball. Maki's transformation into Ultraman doesn't come until the half way mark of the film when his latent powers emerge just on time for the first of two major encounters with Udo. And there you have the core of the problem with the film: half of it is given over purely to character development with little in the way of action and the characters never quite become anything other than two dimensional. Surprisingly, for a film with so much exposition, you are left knowing virtually nothing about the origins of the strange orbs other than that they are somehow psychically linked and that the forces behind them are sworn enemies. The film plays out as an origin story that gives you very little substance as to the character's true origin, which is just plain odd. The weakness of the script leaves you falling back on the film's action sequences for entertainment value and, though both encounters are excellent, having only the two leaves you wanting more.

But on to what the film does well, the action sequences. Ultraman does a stellar job of blending techniques with rubber suits, miniatures and CGI being the most obvious methods used. The miniatures and suits give the film a suitably old school feel while the CG lets the film makers break some new ground. Two primary examples: while Udo is almost always a typical man-in-suit kaiju monster he also features a CG animated tail. The CG tail merges with the latex suit seamlessly and gives the creature a sense of constant motion and speed that he would otherwise lack, not to mention the fact that Udo puts it to good use as a weapon in combat. They do things with Udo's tail that you simply could not do with prosthetics or stop motion and it proves a huge addition to the character without breaking the classic feel they were aiming for. Example two comes when the characters take to the sky in the film's dramatic final battle. This sequence is heavily CG with bits of green screen and other physical techniques thrown in and it is BY FAR the best moment of the film. The aerial combat moves fast and free, it is flawlessly choreographed and it is the moment when these two super powered beings truly live up to their super powered billing. Could this have been done with physical effects? No chance.

To put Ultraman in context with a pair of similar films I caught at Fantasia I'd place it at roughly the mid point on a scale of Tetsujin 28 to Godzilla Final Wars. Flawed, but with enough high points to keep it entertaining.