[SHINOBI03]

Shin Ultraman was great. Again the thought of seeing an Ultraman feature film in theaters is a great experience.

While there are plenty of references to the original series with plenty of in-jokes regarding the old special effects, do not expect it to be a straight up remake because there are plenty of new concepts never done in the original thought makes this film stand out more than say Shin Godzilla which was too close to the 1954 film. Also these in-jokes will be more familiar to the fans rather than the regular audience who would probably be confused or laugh at how they were executed like having Ultraman's flying model be just like the puppet they used in the past.

Due to it covering 5 events (6 if you count the Ultra Q prelude) in 2 hours you could feel it's rushing its plot but it's not a never-ending action sequence after another with no space to focus on character development because you get for both humans and aliens.

The effects are mixed. For great amount of it it looked great as far as Japan's CGI and better looking than Tsuburaya's TV effects, but at the middle "Mephilas fight" it took a steep drop in quality to the "video game" level of quality and it sadly was distracting to me. It's also worth noting that prior to that point the film kept using the classic music and sound effects but once it reached that point they switched to the newer music and sound effects as if it was the turning point of the story arc.

The film was directed by Shinji Higuchi but Hideaki Anno is still the producer and his signature filmography is still there; the distant and close-up shots, focus on mechanical parts, the shadows, etc. Monster designs were a nice update to the originals with more emphasis on the aliens looking extremely alien rather than men in suits.

8.5/10