Ultraman: El ascenso

I originally was not enjoying this film. I thought it was going to be just a typical story about a hero getting humbled to beat a better hero. Then the baby kaiju was introduced and this film revealed what it really was, a story about parenthood and just how lovely it is. With the main character, Sato, starting off the most unlikable character I've ever seen, but throughout the film becoming infinitely more likable. The animation is drop dead gorgeous, every frame looks like a painting. The fight choreography is stellar in most fights. The score sounds pretty average mostly until some fights where they pull out the guitar and just start shredding. Overall I enjoyed the film and am looking forward to other projects to come out of this studio.

I don't know anything about Ultraman, but I was curious about this movie as superhero film, since this genre becomes stale and I wanted to see what else there is.

I wasn't blown away, but there's a lot of interesting ideas and choices and all of it comes down to how good it all blends together.

The biggest deal for me is a main character. Rich baseball hothead is just not that interesting for me and setting up main story takes quite some time so we are left to look at arrogant young adult who meets first big problems in his life, or so it seems. We don't know much about Ultraman origins and I find it refreshing, since all important story beats are here and so we don't know how he became "super" but we see how he becomes "hero".

Action and animation in general is quite exiting, new trand on hybrid of 2D and 3D makes most of new animated features absolute joy to watch and this one is no exception.

By the end I wasn't completely satisfied since we got a happinest of happy ends which is quite strange considering how horrible things go in the third act. I think it's a perfect movie to watch with family or younger people, but not much besides that.

Giving this an 8/10 rating

This brilliant film is in the cinemas now, I watched it in one, this really caught me off guard, in a good way. Adapting these big Japanese characters is a very difficult task, and almost all fall, but thankfully, they decided to do this animated, and spend time on story and character. The animation, by ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) is best there is this year.

Three good animated films, this week, they are 'Inside Out 2, Deep Sea' and this. What a week for cinema! The directors Shannon Tindle and John Aoshima have done a clever looking film, some very good cinema photography and clean direction, makes things very pleasant. Shannon Tindle and Marc Haimes write a family story with three points of view, and you can debate on who is the real evil is, in this, so you can agree on motives or not.

To be clear, you don't have to know anything about 'Ultraman' to enjoy this, the design is sharp and colourful, dialogue is not wishy washy, and a great cast is held together by a soundtrack that punches along. A great watch in the cinema.

First thing, I would rate this a 10/10 but giving I know nothing about the OG Ultraman it's a 9/10. All that said- it's amazing. In other reviews alot of people called the animation "good" but it's absolutely gorgeous. I can tell their are references to the OG Ultraman in it. Now a main part of the movie is "family". It's written many times very cringe in other movies but here it's actually written well without needing to become a meme. I would also say that this movie is also able to be appealing to all ages. I'm in the young adult age range (13-22) if that gives you any help. The animation did draw me in but I did stay for the story. I was able to watch it in one sitting without being bored or it just playing in the background. I extremely recommend watching it. Even the score and music in great (along with the OG references)

So it's a Netflix movie, keep that in mind.

But overall, this hits all the right boxes and even a few surprises. The emotional aspect is really well done and they make you care about the characters along the way.

Make sure you have seen the first one it'll be a little confusing. I appreciated the they didn't force any romance and they didn't make everything perfect for the character.

As a parent I thought they did a good job of displaying some of the difficulties that come with raising kids, especially if they sometimes act like monsters.

If you have Netflix, give this movie a shot. I think you'll like it.