Before Kamen Rider, and before Super Sentai, one of the first popular franchises in Tokusatsu was Ultraman. Unlike the former two which are Henshin heroe series, Ultraman was a Kyodai hero series in which the heroes Grow to immense size to monsters of similar size. Ultrman was technically the second in the Ultra series, being a spiritual sucessor to Tsuburaya's previous Ultra series, Ultra Q, a more anthology series that Executive producer, and Toku Godfather, Eii Tsuburaya to make a show more like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. Ultraman on the other hand focused more on a singular story rather than the anthology and focused on a singular team fighting against invading monsters from space and the main lead transforming humongous alien being to fight against them when the situation called for it. While it wasn't the first Kyodai hero (6 days prior to the premiere, a televison adaptation of Ambassador Magma was released to Fuji Tv.) Ultraman proved to be a great success, spawning multiple sequels throughout the 70's before going on hiatus in the early 80's before returning with great effect in the 90's with Ultraman Tiga, and if you were a early 2002 kid watching saturaday morning cartoons, you likely caught the english dub of tiga, no not a american adapation of tiga, 4kids dubbed over the original show with some of the usual changes they were known for. If you don't remeber this, that's because it barely lasted a year before being taken off the foxbox and the show only seeing a dvd release with the original sub in tact. But getting back to the main topic, while Tiga got Ultraman off to a great start in the heisei era, by 2004, nothing had reached what Tiga did for the franchise, so in 2004, tsubaraya launched the Ultra N project, and attmept to revitalize Ultraman for new fans which included two darker takes on the character, Ultraman Nexus and a prequel film known as Ultraman: the next. Or just ultraman just to aggrevate people when they try to look something up about it because they think you are talking about the original...
Shuichi Maki was living his childhood dream, he was a first lieutenant of the Japanese Self-Defense Force and was a pilot of a F-15 Eagle. Unfortunately for him, his dream had distanced him from his wife and child, a child who also happens to have a congenital blood disease that could kill him at a young age. Wanting to spend more time with his family, Shuichi decides to retire from the military so he can spend whatever time he potentially has with his son. But the night before his retirement he and his friend are called to a bright red light out in the sky, Shuichi ends up coming in to contact with this light and seemingly crashes. Despite what had happened, Shuichi survives the crash with no ill effects and retires, but this light ends up drawing him back into the military who are trying to fight off this large space creature that could engulf the entire planet.
Right of the bat, I have to comment of the family dynamic of the Maki's. I was concerned going into this that Tsugumu would be this sort of plot macguffin who we were meant to feel for because oh, his dad isn't around enough because of his job and he had a extremely deadly disease that could kill him was raising some rather bad flags that he would die by the end. But what they do is after Shuichi's brush with death, we get a good bit in the film the family just enjoying the time they now have at an amusement park. What works is how it is placed after some pretty heavy scenes. The opening itself is full of plenty of nightmare fuel, with this creature just slaughtering all of these soldiers and a body popping out of the monster, it is a very unsettling scene almost out of a good horror movie. In fact, I do think that this movie is really good just for normal movie goers. It probably won't blow some of the bigger movie buffs out their but there is a lot good going on here. Maki is almost instantly likeable and as it goes on you have to feel for his situation as he is treated as a threat because of housing a spirit similar to what the other creature they had contained before it broke out. There has to be something said for the fact that when he is about to go and fight the big bad, he decides to sidetrack to go see his son who has just collapsed. The world is in peril, potentially world ending, but he wants to take precious time out of this to potentially see his son for the last time (Spoiler, he lives through the end of the film, but still.) Speaking of Maki, lets talk about the design of Next, I do like it, its natural look works really well without being too uncanny, the red almost feels like blood running through his body as well as contrasting with the body. Its the purest definition of don't fix what isn't broken. Continuing off of that, the One is pretty good, a reptile that just keeps getting bigger and soon turns into an early CG monstrosity.
Yeah, the CGI used he has not aged well, while the climatic fight in the sky does look passable, the textures, most notably on the one when it is transforming into its final form, looks rathe ridiculous, and I really don't want to spend too much time on this seeing as how I don't think the CG was high on the priority list.
Going back to the characters, I do like the One, what initally comes off as just a simple monster that kills for sustinence, soons comes to light is a horrible psychopath who deeply enjoys killing humans, that is actually a well done bait and switch, 2004 cg not withstanding. If you've watched any kind of Movie, you may have a good idea where they are taking Sara upon the first time you see her, since the one is using her former fiancee as a host. So say it with me. She is a stoic, serious, if a bit jerkish military scientist who treats Maki initally like garbage in order to lure the One, as we go through it seems she was once a lot kinder before the whole boyfriend being possessed happened. She'll probably nearly be killed when the One tries to trick her, it is a fairly standard story but it is done well. Other characters are fairly supportive, Yoko really doesn't get much, though thankfully, she doesn't get the whole jealous thing going with her, Shuichi's former partner is also around for a bit but I really couldn't remember much about him. and some of the military members we have a bit are fairly standard.
CONCLUSION
Ultraman the Next was a good start for a potential film series, as an origin story, it does a lot of things right, the action is good, the characters interesting, and also heartwarming in certain aspects. Its small flaws are fairly easy to overlook, the cg, some superfluous characters, and a few easy to see twists, it is a good starting point potentially. Unfortunately, Ultraman the Next would only be a singular film, while a sequel was planned, The Ultra N project failed to take off well due to the failure of Ultraman Nexus in finding an audience (likely due to its darker tone and having rather difficult time slot, so one could consider it being screwed over by the network). And so following the end of Nexus, a more traditional Ultraman was created in the form of Ultraman Max and the planned sequel was canned. Its a shame, because I felt there was more that could've been done in a sequel, but what we have here is perfectly fine.
FINAL GRADE:B+
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