ULTRAMAN: RISING - Mark Reviews Movies

Ultraman: Rising, Netflix

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | June 13, 2024

Giant monsters attacking a city require a giant hero to fight them. That's the conceit of the character Ultraman at its most basic, since this character, who began appearing in Japanese TV shows and movies in the 1960s, was created in response to the country's—and, soon after, the world's—craze for kaiju. Ultraman as a concept has been rebooted and re-invented multiple times over the decades, and in the animated Ultraman: Rising, the massive superhero gets a new reincarnation that is a lot of fun and possesses a surprising amount of heart.

This version of the hero is Ken Sato (voice of Christopher Sean). By day, he's a professional baseball player, who left a dominating career in the sport in the United States to return to his homeland of Japan. Whenever his watch starts flashing a warning about a giant monster making landfall in the country, though, Ken transforms in beams of colorful light into Ultraman, a sleekly costumed giant that can better match the kaiju than almost any other military response.

One's knowledge of past versions of Ultraman doesn't matter here (which is good, since the character hasn't crossed over internationally as much as some other giants—although this film is good enough to potentially change that). Co-writer/director Shannon Tindle, making his feature debut after working in animated television and movies for a couple decades, uses the idea to create a standalone mythos and story that's not really about who, what, how, and why Ultraman is. The conceit of the character is so simple that it doesn't need much explanation, so Tindle and co-screenwriter Marc Haimes jump right into the struggles of this particular incarnation.

They become much bigger—and literally so—when Ken's Ultraman unintentionally adopts an infant monster. The baby kaiju is 20 feet tall, imprints on Ultraman as if the hero is its parent, and does the usual baby stuff of crying, spitting up, pooping, and playing, while also having a bad case of acid reflux that results in a laser beam shooting out of its beak.

This is a very funny concept, and the filmmakers let the material be both that and quite sincere about matters of family, especially the constant and unending challenges of parenting. Ken had no plans of becoming a parent, since his dual career as a ball-player and a monster-fighter has guaranteed that he's basically a loner. His ego doesn't help, either, but nothing, apparently, humbles a person quite like realizing all of those fish fed to a baby kaiju are going to result in a massive mess that needs to be cleaned.

There's also the matter of Ken's own family here. He was raised in a district of Tokyo by his father Professor Sato (voice of Gedde Watanabe) and mother Emiko (voice of Tamlyn Tomita). From her, the boy gained a love for baseball, and from his father, he would eventually inherit the mantle of Ultraman. Dad was regularly absent, off fighting any giant monster that showed up in Japan, and eventually, the kid and his mother moved to the United States. When Emiko mysteriously disappeared and the professor decided he could no longer be the Ultraman Japan needed, Ken signed on with a team in Tokyo and begrudgingly took on his father's kaiju-fighting gig.

There are multiple complications and conflicts here, starting with a difference of opinion about how to handle the giant monsters that keep showing up to attack Japan for whatever reason. On one side, there's Dr. Onda (voice of Keone Young) and his Kaiju Defense Force, which uses drones and other vehicles armed with advanced technology to kill the beasts. He has his reasons, primarily that a monster attack killed his wife and daughter.

Whether it was the father or is Ken, Ultraman, though, tries to find balance. These monsters aren't villains, after all, but simply living creatures trying to survive. Ultraman may punch his way and use other powers toward stopping a kaiju, but ultimately, the hero wants to find a peaceful resolution.

The biggest complication, of course, is when Ken's Ultraman saves a flying kaiju's egg after the creature is killed by Onda's forces. That means keeping the infant in his underwater headquarters and trying to raise the beast while also juggling his other professional obligations. A floating, spherical robot named Mina (also voiced, pointedly, by Tomita) can only help so much, so eventually, Ken has to call on his estranged father for parenting advice.

All of this is portrayed with a lot of humor, especially when it comes to Ken's understandable incompetence at raising a kid—let alone a particularly large one—with his other responsibilities and in general. At the same time, it's utterly sincere in the growing bonds between Ken, the baby, and his father, as well as how becoming a parent genuinely changes our self-absorbed hero.

Then, there's the film's style, which uses computer animation to give the feeling of something akin to a three-dimensional comic book. Of some note within that is the sense of scale Tindle brings to Ultraman, the monsters, and one final foe that requires an unlikely team-up across generations of different species. The action feels a bit routine compared to everything else going on in the story, but some of the spectacle here, such as faraway shots of the giants against backdrops of the city or the sea, is quite striking.

Obviously, the film promises the continuing adventures of this character. It's a welcome notion here, because Ultraman: Rising is a clever and heartfelt spin on this character and the genre in general.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products