[Fish Sandwich]

Continuing on with Zero's hodgepodge of direct to video specials and movies, I watched Ultraman Zero Vs. Darclops Zero. It was alright. Zero still isn't much of a character in it, but I came out even more convinced Mega Monster Battle is eventually worth my time, and heck, the plot is that there are bad guys making evil robot versions of Ultramen (and Gomora), so, what else could you want?

I also watched Ultraman Zero: The Revenge of Belial. Even though that's not actually what it's called? Seriously I have no idea how anyone is supposed to keep track of all this stuff. That aside, Ultraman Zero The Movie: Super Decisive Battle! Belial Galactic Empire (or whatever), was, in a word:

WOW

I utterly adored this one. Way more than Mega Monster Whatevertheheck. It's a much more focused and, for lack of a better word, human, film overall and that make it easier for it to connect with me. Zero still doesn't do much in the way of growing, but he's portrayed as a slightly more mellow character and a very determined hero, versus just being some jerk who we're arbitrarily meant to care about. As far as I'm concerned this movie is his real debut. The basic plot of him traveling to another world and bonding with a human to fight bad guys even matches that of most Ultra premieres.

The biggest thing that stood out to me here was definitely the visuals, though. They're gorgeous. So many insane sci-fi vistas and awesome actions shots brought to life to a level that's downright inexplicable. I mean, look at this crazy s***:



Or this crazy s***:



And what about THIS crazy s***:



"But all this space stuff gets a little boring!", you say. Don't worry, they've got you covered:



What? "That's cool and all, but what I really wanted was-":



Pirates? I hope you were about to say pirates, because this movie has pirates.

The entire thing is pure eye candy from start to finish, and it really helps build up the epic space adventure feel they were going for. I mean, a movie where Ultraman assembles a misfit team of rebooted Tsuburaya heroes to stop an evil space armada? Sign me the f*** up! Watching this movie genuinely feels like going on some kind of grand quest. It's awesome and I love it. You don't even really need any context for anything going in so it's another movie like X's where I recommend it as a gateway drug. If you hate this film you probably hate fun.