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.