Starring:

Some Japanese people.

The Story: I've been an Ultra Man fan for as long as I can remember. If my mother were still alive she'd tell you the same thing....as a child I would run through the house screaming the Ultra Man theme song. Too bad I never got to see more than the original series. I'm not really all that informed on the other incarnations of the giant monster-basher. But even though Ultra Man holds a special place in my heart, it might not have been so if I had to put up with Ultra Man Dyna's series. Hey, I said, MIGHT. I haven't seen the series so I can't be sure, I can only go by what I saw in this movie.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say something I'm not real happy about saying. The hero that turns into Ultra Man Dyna, Azuka, is one real ugly mutha ****. I don't go around judging guys looks but it just hit me while watching this flick. The dubbing didn't help matters since whenever Azuka speaks he mugs his lips out and bulges his eyes, even when he's supposedly being serious. As pointed out in the Stomp Tokyo review of this movie, Azuka, is also the comic relief guy. Talk about a kick in the head. A hero that's not only hideous but painfully unfunny.

Just like the Science Patrol in the original series we have the team of Super GUTS (and don't ask me what the hell that stands for) pledged to save the Earth from gigantic monsters. When the film starts we join the Super GUTS team fighting a big bad monster in space. The creature seems impervious to their weapons and the situation is dire when all of a sudden Ultra Man Dyna appears out of nowhere and engages the monster in combat. Dyna is having a difficult time beating the beast on the moon's surface when a huge earth space battleship approaches and destroys it with a powerful new weapon....the Neo Maxima Cannon.

The Super GUTS team is then invited to the Tropical Island base of the TPC (again, I don't know what TPC stands for....its just some other kind of World Protection Agency) The commander of the TPC and Dr. Kasaragi (Sp?) have created the space battleship Prometheus because they believe mankind relies on Ultra Man Dyna too much to save the day. But they require the Super GUTS team to imprint their brain patterns into Prometheus' computer to make it effective. Prometheus is unmanned and runs entirely on computers. At first the Super GUTS captain is skeptical, but Azuka for some reason volunteers to be first in donating his imprint. (he even says it twice, due to the dubbing from Japanese to English..."Captain...lets cooperate.....captain...lets cooperate". Geezuz we heard ya the first time, buddy) As Azuka is prepared in the mind reading tube thing, Dr. Kasagari whispers to him that she will soon have all his power...Dyna! Yes, somehow this woman knows that Azuka is Ultra Man Dyna! The procedure knocks Azuka out and he has a terrible nightmare of Ultra Man Dyna being destroyed by the Neo Maxima Cannon. He doesn't have too much time to ponder the dream however, because just as he awakens in the base's sickbay a UFO begins attacking. The Super GUTS team take off in their GUTS Eagle Fighter to shoot it down, but quickly crash into the sea. The Fighter has been sabotaged! Azuka becomes Ultra Man Dyna and joins the fight. But Kasagari aboard the Prometheus makes an announcement. She's been dominated by an alien force known as the Molena and they have not only decided to wipe out humanity, they've transformed the Prometheus into a giant Robot. Ultra Man Dyna then proceeds to use the unlikely-to-be-successful tactic of winning the fight by letting his opponent beat the snot out of him. Amazing, yes, I never thought Ultra Man could lose a fight, especially against alien invaders. In the original series Ultra Man practically committed genocide when fighting the Boltons.

The Prometheus Robot arms the Neo Maxima cannon and readies to fire and for a moment Dyna hesitates, remembering the dream he had of his destruction. I guess he ran away because after the cannon is fired, destroying a large chunk of the island, we see Azuka later on. Meanwhile the aliens release Kasagari from their control after using her to make another announcement. They intend to destroy civilization within a week. As the city is evacuated, Azuka sulks and is generally useless, even though his teammates begin to steel themselves for the coming battle. Again, not having seen any other but the original series (and one episode of Ultra Seven on video tape 5 years ago) this next bit is a little hazy. A little boy on the street tells Azuka that he's basically a chicken heart and that he should be brave like Ultra Man Tiga, an earlier Ultra Man. Azuka even goes to see the former super GUTS commander (a woman whose name I sure didn't write down) for more information on Tiga. Apparently he hopes to find Tiga in order to defeat the aliens. This doesn't work and the aliens begin their assault with the Prometheus Robot. The Super GUTS team strike back even though they can't harm the robot. Even though they at first seem a little pissed off that Azuka didn't even bother to show up to help they seem to have their hearts lifted when they see him running towards the battle firing a hand weapon. But the Robot is too strong, so Azuka once again transforms into Ultra Man Dyna. This time Dyna stands his ground when the robot employs the Neo Maxima Cannon and delivers a telling blow. Then in true superhero fashion, he throws the battered robot into space where it explodes. The people, huddled in underground bunkers rejoice....but as Dyna flies away the aliens manifest into another larger, stronger monster! The monster snatches Dyna from the air and imprisons him within its own body. Like the original Ultra Man, Dyna can only fight in our world for a limited time before his energy runs out. His warning light blinks the emergency, but its too late. Dyna's power source is exhausted and he slumps, unmoving, in the monster's trap. Then by the twitching of my thumb something corny this way comes....

The little boy that Azuka met earlier talks about "the light" and how it can used to bring Ultra Man Tiga if they all believe. The people then start saying that they believe in Peanut Butter, Peter Pan, Fairies and Tiga and what not, and amazingly Ultra Man Tiga materializes in the city above them. Tiga must be more of a bad ass then Dyna because he immediately starts busting the monster up, freeing Dyna and then re-energizing his fallen comrade. With his energy back, Dyna joins the fight with Tiga. The Super GUTS team begin firing at the creature and this time their weapons actually have an effect. The two Ultra Men then destroy the aliens with their powerful specium rays and save the Earth.

I get the idea that the dubbing left a lot to be desired in this movie. And not really knowing what happened to Ultra Man Tiga in his series was somewhat confusing. Was he beaten and destroyed? (after all, why didn't he arrive before this whole "light" nonsense?) The movie also seemed to be a reunion episode for the former Super GUTS team of Tiga's series, but that means little to someone who's NEVER seen that series.

Ultra Man Dyna and Ultra Man Tiga is still a fun trip if you're into Ultra Man or Japanese giant monster shows. The parts that I didn't fully understand were a small price to pay in order to see one of my favorite childhood heroes in action again. I could have done without all of the supposedly inspirational "light" messages, but that doesn't make this a bad movie. Hopefully I'll get to see the other Ultra series one day. Then maybe I'll understand this flick a little better. If you have any info on them share the wealth and email the Inferno.

Best Lines:  “The light! come to meeeeee!” - Azuka, as he calls on the light to bring Ultra Man Tiga.

“We still have the best transportation of all! Our legs!” - The Super GUTS captain, after all of their vehicles have been destroyed.

 Are you kidding me?

1.) Here's my biggest beef with Ultra Man Dyna....compared to the original Ultra Man, he's a wimp. Yeah, he has better special effects but that's about it. The original Ultra Man by comparison, never actually seemed frightened....even though the Ultra Man faces are incapable of showing emotion, you can see that Dyna is visibly shaken by the robot. And he ran away without even trying in the first battle because of a dream! That really puts a bruise on the mettle of Ultra Man. I have dreams where I get killed almost every freakin' night and I'm not a giant space man with super powers! It doesn't help that Dyna later beat Prometheus with one good punch. Was this supposed to be a message of "Face your fears straight on"? because it seemed more like a message of "Don't be a yellow chicken hearted coward." to me. Even the little boy wondered how someone as cowardly as Azuka could be a member of Super GUTS.

2.) The Super GUTS team must be kind of lax. Azuka doesn't report in for the big battle and when he does arrive its after the fact, yet they're all saying "Way to go Azuka!". Yeah, way to go. He sulks and hides and shows up late for the battle carrying a itty bitty gun.

3.) Yeesh. I thought Microsoft Windows and its incomprehensible error messages were bad. I'll be damned if I ever find out what a "Fault 321 causing an error in Kernel 567. DLL" or whatever means, but at least I get some information. (Like, "Crap! Better reformat this piece of @#*&^$! Damn you, Bill Gates!") When the Super GUTS fighter crashes the screen the pilot reads says "Trouble". Whew! That's helpful! I think anyone on a crashing aircraft can figure out they're in trouble for themselves! How about something useful to say....even a stinking Error 404 message would be more to go on.

4.) Since this movie was a reunion of sorts for the former Super GUTS team and Ultra Man Tiga I wonder what happened to the original Science Patrol? Were they ever reunited in another of the Ultra Series? whatever happened to the original Ultra Man? At the end of his series he was defeated by a space monster (That the Science Patrol destroyed afterwards) and taken back to his home planet by another Ultra Guy to heal. But it was said that he would return...did he?

5.) Although the dubbing is pretty bad, its also kind of funny. When the Super GUTS captain says things like "We can't show them we're afraid!" or "You Jerk!" it just comes off as humorous. Especially at the end of the battle when he says "Azuka, you're OK!" and gives him a high five. I wonder if movies in English look as silly when dubbed in Japanese. Probably, and actually....I hope so! Laughter is an international language.

Nudity and Sex: none

Huh?:

I don't know much about Ultra Man Dyna so maybe someone can explain this. Dyna seems to have three or so forms, pictured below. But I don't know what these changes mean if anything. If you know, email the Inferno.

When the Prometheus Robot fights and defeats Ultra Man Dyna the first time the Super GUTS captain asks "How can it know all of his moves?". All of what moves? Dyna didn't do anything! At least not anything amazing or unexpected. He did a few slow ass back flips. The robot didn't need any prior knowledge to whoop on him!

the Super GUTS vehicles have "Super GUTS" written on them in English. Why? This is a Japanese movie and the action is obviously in Japan. I just wondered why it was written in English.

One of these days I'm going to have to learn Japanese because the dubbing is waaaay off in this feature. Characters mouths and the words really don't match up well. While that's a usual thing for most Japanese imports, this flick really took the cake with it. Especially Azuka. I thought Chris and Scott were exaggerating about how annoying Azuka was. Boy did I learn the hard way.

The Final Judgment: Despite the fact that I may have a little rough on this flick, I'm still an Ultra Man fan....so its not going into the gorge of eternal Peril. But the demons of the pit have only given it 4 devils. I never thought I'd see the day when Ultra Man didn't get all five! I guess Dyna shouldn't have run away. This movie will be a no brainer for all Ultra fans and decent entertainment for kids who may never have heard of Ultra Man before. And although I could have done without "the light" the message of "Never give up" is a good one. I need to remember that sometimes, myself.

Chris and Scott's review of this flick can be found at the Excellent Stomp Tokyo site!