“You think that silver giant could use our help?”
Yet another series in the long and storied installments of the Ultraman mythos, “The Ultimate Hero” was an interesting show if for nothing else than because it was produced entirely in the US, and with an all-American cast. This also meant it was only the second Ultraman series produced outside of the Land of the Rising Atomic Monsters, with the other being the Australian born “Ultraman: Towards the Future”. The 11th chapter of the “Ultra” series, “Ultimate Hero” was universally shat upon by faithful fans of the spandex clad defender(s) of the universe, and not just because it was full of white people. Apparently the monsters, though some of the better looking in the rogues gallery of the disco space ninja, weren't especially durable costume-wise, meaning the fight action had to be toned down to keep them from getting fubared while shooting. And as we all know, the whole point of an Ultraman presentation is the fun of watching grown men dressed in rubber monster suits and throwing each other around model cities. For shame on you Tsuburaya Productions and Major Havoc Entertainment, neglecting the purity of kaiju wrestling in favor of visual appeal. You might as well do an Evil Dead with digital blood and cgi Deadites!... don't go getting any ideas.
Our pilot episode begins when a spacecraft (that looks like the ultimate masochist's supreme sex toy) fires three glowing objects toward Earth from its hiding spot behind the moon. One of the objects is picked up by sexy, badly jumpsuited members of The Worldwide Investigation Network Response (WINR) group. What they find only appears to be a shell though, and not a peanut shell neither. Its genetic makeup looks to be more in line with an insect... though the thought of a 90ft tall Mister Peanut slam dancing through Tokyo to the poppy tunes of the Bay City Rollers does carry a certain “what the fuck?!” quality to it that could have made this a premiere episode to remember.
Before you can say, “RAAAAAAAAAAID?!”, a pair of beat cops are investigating a warehouse disturbance only to find themselves dispatched by a vary familiar humanoid lobster cockroach monster thingy that has the power to create mirage duplicates of itself. That's right, as with any Ultraman show worth its weight in rubber space hellions, the Baltans are here! Back at WINR base, attempts to contact the mysterious doom dildo hovering in orbit around our moon prove futile, so the big wigs try to send a warning shot to get its attention. Instead, the firing satellite ends up inadvertently zapping something else that crosses its path, sending said UFO crashing down to Earth and landing it somewhere in southern California. While WINR agents Julie Young (who looks like a young Barbara Crampton) and Ken'ichi Kai (played by Kane Kosugi, son of b-action star Sho Kosugi!) check out the crash site of the downed vessel, Ken is teleported away by a strange red light. No, they didn't shoot down the Event Horizon and open a gateway to Hell, but this is the point where the WINR's only Asian guy on the job goes through the inevitable transformation into Ultraman. I'm assuming because Japanese people are the only nationality with the proper genetic structure to maintain a symbiotic relationship with this particular species of size-altering galactic super cops from the M78 star system...
According to the synthesizer voice inside of the Hell portal (which is provided by Kane's poppa Sho Kosugi and sounds kinda like the MCP from Tron), the Baltans have been universally responsible for countless deaths and destroyed planets with their new target being... come on, you know this one... it's a planet you know... no, it's Earth. Damn, no wonder your mom abandoned you at the bus station when you were 3. So, the enigmatic voice says that it has been following the Baltans and has come to finally put a stop to the menace and save Earth. To do so though, it must merge its power with a human host... in other words, if Ken or someone else hadn't found it, the space cop would pretty much be shit outta luck and stuck in its ship at the bottom of a crater while the world turned into a Baltan murder orgy all around it. Not the best strategery for a co-called intergalactic peace keeper if you ask me.
As with every other incarnation of the silver and red super giant, Ken can only turn into Ultraman for 3 minutes a day, thus making him the eternal deus ex machina for any and every alien invasion that lasts 30 minutes or less... as well as a big shiny reminder of the infamous “3 minute” joke when it comes to the underwhelming male sexual stamina. Hey, much like Ultraman, sometimes 3 minutes is all I need to zap the clam monsters into submission. Awwwwww yeah. You like that, baby? Good, cuz that's all I got. Your money's on the nightstand and you can't use my bathroom. Get out. Anyway, Ken uses his first 180 seconds as a savior of the planet to brawl with a Megalon sized Baltan amidst the particle board buildings of downtown Metro City. Sadly, I think the best way to sum up this fight comes from the two WINR agents watching it from the sidelines as they look at each other with sort of a bored, “can you believe this crap?” expression on their faces. I can see what the purists were talking about. Neither Ultraman nor his giant pinchy opponent do much beyond pushing each other around a little, flying around momentarily on wires, and exchanging hand blasts from their stiff, nigh motionless arms. There are no costumed acrobatics to be had, no exciting cheesy giant monster fight soundtrack, and the two don't even give us the trademark monster noises and “Ultra grunts” we all know and love. Blah. The Baltan gets vaporized thanks to the old “crossed arms of doom”attack, the villains' orbiting sex toy ship runs off with its tail fin between its thrusters, and the Ultraman Power decides to stick around in case the hallucinogenic crustaceans decide to take another swing at us. What are those gag cushions that make the fart sounds? Whoopee.
A sadly sub-par start to what I've heard to be a sadlier (?!) sub-sub-parrier (?!) show. Visually, I'm a little surprised Full Moon's name isn't anywhere on this production. A lot of the shots and model work look like stuff found on the cutting room floor for Kraa! or Zarkorr!. It feels like the producers tried to go for a darker, slightly “edgier” environment for “Ultimate Hero”, only to fail miserably in the effort. Ultraman is supposed to be fun to watch! The human characters are supposed to have an air of b-movie to them in the campy sense, not just in the “can't act their way out of a paper bag if their families' lives depended on it” way! The kaiju wrestling is supposed to be a big three ring spectacle like the main event at Wrestlemania, not badly shot pushing matches and pose-offs. I understand the pressure to make something “modern”, but just because it worked for Godzilla, Gamera, and Batman doesn't mean the same can be applied to Ultraman. Let's just call this first episode “Exhibit A” and see if maybe, by some “Jiminy Cricket on LSD” type miracle, the other episodes stopped trying to be so damn serious and remembered what it meant to be an Ultraman fan.
Moral of the Story: When Frank Miller re-created Batman with "The Dark Knight Returns", he managed to make the caped crusader bad-ass, but did so with the right balance of dark humor and face-busting action. My point? 15 years ago, somebody should've thrown a bag of money at Frank Miller to do the same for Ultraman instead of just going with this... this... whatever you wanna call it.
