Ultraman: Rising
Children are the protagonists in “Ultraman: Rising,” an animated fantasy about a superhero but not the stars. The alien hero series “Shin Ultraman” and its serial format were redone as more of a retro modernism by that. This new movie wants to be popular with family audiences, who probably won’t be too concerned with previous incarnations of the character. It’s not a big deal, even though it is sometimes annoyingly obvious considering how much this fresh film’s formulaic daddy issues drama recycles decades worth of pseudo adult animated movie clichés.
A brooding hero who must grow up to be truly great is this new Ultraman, which means he has to get past his domestic hangups mad at dad, misses mom and also take care of a giant baby dragon monster. The dragon is cute and funny right away because it doesn’t talk or have any personality beyond these things where its moods swing wildly back and forth between being adorable and breaking your heart with those big eyes set into such an appealing design for a creature like this one here that always looks ready to cuddle all day long no matter what kind of trouble it gets itself into over there somewhere out among those stars shining down upon us every night while we sleep dreaming dreams about strange new worlds waiting just beyond our reach across vast oceans filled up with lore from stories told by sailors returned from distant lands visited during their voyages through time immemorial.
When mankind first ventured out among them hoping they might find something interesting hidden beneath them but that’s another story entirely isn’t it now? Anyway yeah so ultramen used to be charming when they were normal people living everyday lives dealing with stuff like families jobs mortgages taxes etcetera/nothing else ever really mattered all that much until monsters robots aliens arrived on scene then suddenly everything changed forever only becoming important once again whenever science fiction threatened doom upon humanity yet still somehow managing win every single battle against evil forces hellbent upon destroying earth universe etcetera that’s right we said EVERY SINGLE ONE damn straight because this IS ultraman we’re talking about here not some ordinary superhero but rather THE SUPERHERO above all others who also happens to wrestle with menaces from outer space now and again when he isn’t busy wrestling menaces from inner space which is where things get really interesting if you know what I mean don’t ya buddy old pal?
In “Ultraman: Rising” Ken Sato, a baseball prodigy (Christopher Sean), is Ultraman’s secret identity. Ken tries to balance his career as a major leaguer with the demands of battling kaiju. Ken is defined by arrogance for a moment before the plot has it another way. That is when he realizes that he can’t do everything himself and needs help. This takes place after Professor Sato reveals the existence of an organization called Kaiju Defense Force or KDF for short, which was created following humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial life forms such as Gigantron; Additionally, Emi was found during their fight against Gigantron so now she must be taken care of too.
Many people are involved in raising him since he rejects all calls from Dad and doesn’t quite know how to respond when Ami Wakita (Julia Harriman) a nosy journalist who happens be single mother her son loves Ultraman starts asking questions about what happened behind scenes while battling monsters together because there always seems like something more going on than just fighting bad guys all day long until bedtime rolls around once again like clockwork ticking down seconds minutes hours until morning comes bringing light into darkness dispelling fears born out ignorance only revealing truth hidden deep within our hearts waiting patiently its chance reveal itself oh yeah now i remember why those shows were so much fun back then weren’t they? The leader of KDF is Dr Onda who is very strict.
It takes village to raise Ken, whose father calls go unanswered and journalist Ami Wakita tries to help single mother of young Ultraman-obsessed daughter but mostly Mina looks after Emi & Dad comes along later rescues Ultraman from being complex character. On the other hand, Emi believes she is her mother and has disgusting bodily fluids including slimy puke, fiery gas and gooey “poopies.” These jokes write themselves as do most plot twists & dialogue in this movie.
The creators of “Ultraman: Rising” did everything possible to cater for every audience member, an effort that becomes even more evident when Ken is at the center of attention. Some of his lines do not match the rest of the film’s Dreamworks Lite tone, such as when he asks rhetorically, “Is this the part where the villain sends a hidden force that we didn’t know about?” (Well, yeah.) It’s even harder to understand why one scene focused on Ken is scored with Sex Pistols’ “Pretty Vacant.” (No, really.)
At least Emi moves and behaves reasonably well, though her physically shaky movements and animated facial expressions mainly stand out compared to her peers’ humanly inexpressive faces and wooden body languages. The voice cast does what it can to enliven their lifeless characters, but there’s only so much spin you can put on awkward placeholder lines like “Someday, when you have kids of your own, you’ll understand.”
“Ultraman: Rising” finds its footing whenever its titular hero takes over nothing new there. But working on the dorsal-finned visitor from the Land of Light seems to have brought out some primo work from somewhere deep down in this movie’s bench of computer animators. Just as important is how those superhuman giants move around each other, rather than gesture at their deeper feelings or motives which has never been these filmmakers’ creative strong suit.
Of all things, though, what lacks most in “Ultraman: Rising” is any kind of interesting idea about being a parent or an adult who has trouble juggling multiple responsibilities. The movie is fun enough if a little rote during its monsters-attack-everything climax, but it doesn’t demand much more than that from you anywhere else.
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