It is I!!!!!! The Ghost of Christmas Ultra!!! Here to bring you a review of a genuinely peak film. Ok so now introduction's over. I was browsing Tubi and I discovered a few things. 1, they got rid of KOTM, 2, they brought back Tiga and finally added Omega to their Ultraman list. I do plan on watching those in the future of course, but like most real good films I find, fate had chosen me to pick a film that I had absolutely no plans on watching. As usual, spoilers ahead and one more thing.
"Us pilots don't get to choose what airplane we fly, if your plane malfunctions no amount of skill can save you, when we take to the skies we accept that fate." - Shunichi Maki.
I will admit, I'm not the biggest brightest fan of the Ultra N Project, but this film was just wow. I only knew this film as two things, a remake of the original Ultraman and that it's apart of the Ultra N Project, but I know 3 things now after watching this film. It's a remake of the original Ultraman, its the Ultra N Project, and that it's genuinely great.
Film follows Shunichi Maki, jet pilot 1 week of retirement who encounters a red orb of light, paralleling a blue orb of light (sound familiar?) that attacked earlier. Due to meeting this orb, he ends up fusing with Ultraman The Next, a weakened and not as powerful version of Noa that lacks most of his moveset. Along with that, he must face Beast the One, a demon that fuses with other animals to grow and evolve to be more powerful.
I liked Maki a whole lot, I am of the belief that the Showa Era protags are a lot more robotic acting, which I don't hate but I don't necessarily like either, and as such I do like it when the protags act much more human, I.E Katsuto and Maki.
He acts as what any human would do if they were in his shoes, he freaks out learning he too is fused with another otherworldly creature like Beast The One, he asks why this is happening to him and demands answers from the military. He wasn't jumping the gun into immediately being superhero for a few reasons. 1. He just retired from being a fighter pilot and 2. Ultraman didn't exist prior so yeah I don't think I'd be too excited either.
The Next, who I will just call Ultraman from now on, is a parallel to the original Ultraman like how Maki is Hayata's parallel. He crashes into Maki's Jet in the form of a huge orb of red light just like in the first episode of the series.
He was my favorite part of the film, he has in my opinion the coolest design between the 3 N Project Ultras, with Noa coming in 2nd and Nexus coming in 3rd respectively, even from the very beginning where Maki meets Ultraman in this green domain expansion style space, he appears in the form of a red orb before the light orb reshapes itself into an outline of Ultraman's face and chest features. The moment I laid my eyes on this I knew this film would be good as fuck, you don't just drop something like that in a bad film. That and the absolute fucking banger of a theme song is when I knew this film was worth watching.
Beast The One (yes thats his name im not pulling your leg), simply called The One, is as much a parallel to Bemular as Ultraman is to Man Nii-san and Maki is to Hayata. He crashes to Earth in the form of a blue orb and fuses with a rather unfortunate submarine worker who gets his humanity and consciousness wiped leaving only The One left.
I wasn't too on board with the thought of The One for a while until I watched him fight Ultraman for the first time, he goes from a very simple lizard dude to a huge like 20 feet tall monster that absorbs a whole bunch of snake thingies and proceeded to wipe out a whole bunch of soldiers that tried to kill him with poison darts.
Later in the film, he changes appearance again, I will gloss over the rat section cus it wasn't too interesting, but in the final stretch of the film, he absorbs a whole lot of crows and grows wings, going from simple kaiju to, as described by the public, a demon.
I loved this fight, it was a perfect climax in the last 10-15 minutes of the film, I will try to keep the spoilers light but I was tweaking out watching this fight. Ultraman is throwing his slash yellow energy things at The One, he saves a little girl by letting a falling building catch onto his back, but my favorite part is when Maki discovers he can fly and hes having flashbacks of being a fighter pilot and describing the feeling of flying alone tens of thousands of feet into the air.
Then he gets his ass beat by The One only for his jet pilot buddies to launch a missile barrage and Ultraman goes back to beating him up, I had the entire fight excitedly chanting to use the beam attack and to kill him and I was actually losing it watching him do just that.
Like the original Ultraman, Maki dies and has a final talk with Ultraman where he tells him the above quote and how he understood why fate chose him to be Ultraman and that his only regret was that he couldn't fulfill his son's promise. Where Ultraman then gives him life so he can fulfill his promise that he and his son will one day fly in a plane together.
This ending brought tears to my eyes, of joy or of sadness I don't know. But the ending and the quote touched me in a place I didn't expect it to.
An unexpectedly good remake of the original Ultraman with a unique plot targeted towards older audiences and a pretty good soundtrack, this film has earned a spot in the hall of fame for me. I giev it an objective 8.5/10 but my bias and the ending scene definitely made me give it a personal rating of 10/10. I highly recommend it.
That's all for today, I hope you have a merry christmas and just as a daily reminder.
Just. Be. Ultra!!!
