Ultraman Zearth (1996)
aka Urutoraman Zeasu
Article 6079 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-20-2023
Directed by Shinya Nakajima
Featuring Masaharu Sekiguchi, Takaaki Ishibashi, Noritake Kinashi
Country: Japan
What is: Movie version of TV hero

A space alien combines forces with a gold-eating monster to trick Ultraman Zearth into destroying the Earth.

I’ve been on a bit of an Ultraman binge lately, which is actually a pretty big order. Ultraman Zearth never had an actual TV series as such, but he was featured in two movies about the time “Ultraman Tiga” was popular. The movie is really no longer than two episodes of the series, and I was surprised that this one is mostly played for laughs. Our hero appears to be in training; he’s not an official member of whatever iteration of the monster-fighting force this one features, but a trainee, and he seems to have two weaknesses to overcome: bad aim and an obsession with cleanliness. I wouldn’t recommend this one who is trying the series out for the first time; much of the humor is based on what you know about the series. My favorite joke is discovering what the headquarters of the monster-fighting team are.