'Shin Ultraman' movie review: A misfitting callback

The film borrows heavily from the presentation of 'Shin Godzilla,' but falters due to its inherently more lighthearted tone clashing with the serious presentation

Shin Ultraman

Director: Shinji Higuchi

Cast: Takumi Saitoh, Masami Nagasawa, Koji Yamamoto

Score: 2.5 stars

There was one emotion I felt more strongly than any other while watching Shin Ultraman in theatres: "I've missed this." It may be because the film deliberately calls back to a number of past entries in the Ultra series by legendary special effects master Eiji Tsuburaya or perhaps because it's permeated with an ever-present sense of nostalgia - regardless, it is a very inviting entry into a storied franchise.

And yet, it feels like those aspects are its weakest links. Be it the callbacks or the nostalgia factor, both of them bog the film down just as much as they prop it up. Ultimately, Shin Ultraman is something that is missing a spark.

The film follows the beats of the original Ultraman series, where a body of government-appointed science-people look to fight wave after wave of monsters, even as one member of their gang is secretly Ultraman, a giant alien superhero who tackles both them and extraterrestrial threats to protect humanity.

Only in Shin Ultraman, the plot, which would typically have taken a series of anywhere up to 40 episodes if not more, is condensed into a film that runs just shy of two hours. The consequence is that the plot is usually more direct with no leg space for filler but it pays for that in an explosive pace that leaves virtually no breathing room, laced with jargon and fast camerawork that it is.

Some viewers might be familiar with the last bit there, since it's virtually the same strategy used by directors Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno (who is just a producer for this film) in 2016's Shin Godzilla, which worked as a strong, scathing commentary on the inefficacy of Japanese bureaucracy in the face of a national disaster. Yet while those elements worked to exacerbate the threat of a giant, grotesque nuclear deformity, it does not work nearly as well for a traditionally more lighthearted series.

As the film progresses and Ultraman, disguised as an SSSP member Shinji Kaminaga (Takumi Satoh doing his best impression of an out-of-touch-with-humanity alien), fights a few monsters and tackles multiple alien threats, it becomes clear that the film could probably have worked better as maybe a 10-episode miniseries instead. The laser-focused plot and bullet train-like pacing does little to humanise Ultraman as a character as he quickly goes from detached to self-sacrificing, and the supporting cast also bears the brunt.

The film also suffers in another regard - delivering a theme. While there is a lot of talking about the merits of humanity against the potential danger of their growth, particularly between Ultraman and the alien antagonists, there is little exploration of any concrete thematic element other than "just be decent people and work together," something that - sadly enough - Shin Godzilla also did better than Ultraman. It does explore the idea that truth and trust between people is necessary, and that humans as a species have intrinsic value despite their destructive tendencies. But this kind of gets lost amid the admittedly beautiful spectacle, visual effects and action (and, at the risk of being a broken record, the pace).

Shin Ultraman looks and feels like it's a film made for people who grew up on series like this. The callbacks and nostalgia will certainly have an effect on fans of the genre, and specifically of the Ultra series - but if it comes at the cost of being a truly effective film, then perhaps at least some of the ideas that ended in the film bear revisiting.