It's been a long time since I watched the last episode of Ultraman Geed. (aka the end of Belial?)
I can't honestly tell what to think about the movie since it's an extra sequel to the series. It's about Airu, giant ass lion, and a planet destroyer using advanced technology (sort of).
And again with another Ultraman team up, which is why I made an alternate title. It's like a Sentai VS movie.
By the way, have you notice that bartender?
Spoiler
Officer Kariya of Super GUTS looks different.
Also, Orion (KyuuRanger) only appears at the beginning. What a waste.
Note: This movie has commentary track, so I recommend you to use other video players like VLC.
Strong 4. About expected for the Ultraman Teamup films, to be honest. Loved Zero's 'cheat' with his use of Shining to let him escape. Riku though felt a bit out of character, since it feels like the show itself had dealt with any self-doubt issues he would've had, so it felt a bit late in things for him to have them. Guess it was required for the actualization of self needed for the powerup, but him stumbling a bit in this movie didn't feel like as big a deal as oh...Learning you were a defective clone created for the sole purpose of being used in a plan to let your dad to steal the most powerful Ultra's Powers? Those revelations personally felt deserving of the 'all is lost' moment over this. But beyond that, no significant issues from me; I enjoyed it.
I like Ultimate Final as a Unique powered form for Geed, it follows in the 'redemption through decent' theme Geed was going with it being a light-aligned actualization of Belial's own skills with the battlenizer. Ended up getting the toy for the Giga Finalizer, it's neat even if with it scaled down it ends up looking more like a microphone.
Caught up with the licensed version on Blu-ray; it wasn't that bad when viewed as an episodic special, though it had a couple of issues as a movie for me.
First off, the movie's acknowledgements of past Ultraman lore is a treat for longer fans, from a couple of references to the Silver Cross Corps to a split-second appearance from Shining Zero (which, along with the also-present-here Strong Corona and Luna Miracle forms, were notably absent from the series; is Zero incapable of using these forms with a host?). Still, though, the film only continues to confuse on whether Geed's universe is indeed the Mebius/Showa world; Zero's friends imply that it's Zero's native universe, while Father of Ultra addresses it as simply "Geed's" (the director's said the world is Mebius', but that would be decades before Zero's first appearance, to say nothing of a Showa-era Ultra arriving "from a different universe" in the show).
While I didn't enjoy Orb's series as much as others did, Gai lifts up whatever scenes he's in here, and his chemistry with Juggler (now apparently as trustworthy equals?) remains a highlight of the New Generation era's human characters. One scene in particular, which sees Orb offering to relax with Riku at the hot springs and Riku's refusal that they have things to do first, emphasizes the differences between the two's places in their personal stories as well as highlighting Riku's acting unhealthily incapable of relaxation.
With that said, on to the bad. It's pretty clear that a number of the more recent Ultraman movies err on the side of rote, triple-length theater specials, and it really shows here. With the series arc of Riku changing his destiny complete, it feels like Tsuburaya wasn't sure where to go from there beyond slapping on a one-movie arc about... stress? Perfectionism? It's a shame that the movie decided to go this relatively forced route as opposed to emphasizing the strength of the character's compassion, as it was willing to do with Gai's quality of tranquility. That isn't even getting into the fridging trope or the movie-only love-at-first-meeting issue (Riku's reaction to meeting the tour guide/princess gave me flashbacks to Takeru's meetup with Mayu in the Kamen Rider Ichigou movie). Also, why even have Ultimate Force Zero if they're essentially cut off from doing anything for most of the movie? As it is, having them sitting around doing nothing doesn't get the movie anywhere. (The nod to the 2010 movie at the end was fun, though.)
Anyway, the villains were a quite an enjoyable extension of their fantastic first appearance in Orb (the film having caught that it was their wayward philosophy, not their toughness, that made Galactron so interesting), and the main villain was pretty well thought out as well. It's a pretty by-the-numbers movie overall, but with the caveats I'd mentioned earlier, it does a pretty good job at being what it is. Hopefully the upcoming Taiga movie will take better advantage of the potential offered by feature-length storytelling.
