Credit where credit is due, Ultraman: Rising looks terrific in terms of its animation. The new take on the Japanese superhero Ultraman comes to life under the watch of directors Shannon Tindle and John Aoshima through animation building on the heightened visuals popularized by titles like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The Industrial Light & Magic crew (doing their only third fully-animated film following Rango and Strange Magic) deliver fantastic work providing stylized touches to Ultraman's various skirmishes with big monsters and other adversaries. Fire and smoke are realized in a style evoking hand-drawn animation. Brightly-colored impressionistic backgrounds surround the lead characters to accentuate powerful emotions. Even just the movements of Ultraman are enjoyably dynamic and angular. Just this massive superhero's body language is a lot of fun to watch!
Unfortunately, Ultraman: Rising's glorious animation touches are undercut by the screenplay by Tindle and Marc Haimes. Rather than function as a streamlined action-oriented tale propelled by visuals, Rising is a way too crowded narrative that crumbles under the weight of too many subplots. The story of Kenj Sato/Ultraman (Christopher Sean) caring for the newborn offspring of a kaiju foe is enough to sustain a motion picture. The proceedings eventually dovetail into Sato reconciling his complicated daddy issues. Then there's Sato's exploits as a baseball player. Eventually, even the Ultraman persona becomes an afterthought in the movie!
The busy plot especially becomes a blur in the second half where key character beats (like Sato learning to be more of a team player in baseball) breeze past in the blink of an eye. Tindle and Haimes also take an unfortunate page from modern animated movies like The LEGO Ninjago Movie in thinking endless dramatic monologues will make your kid's feature as emotionally resonant as Up. Given its striking images, one would hope Ultraman: Rising would have more confidence in visual storytelling. Alas, Ultraman: Rising is far too much in love with characters like reporter Ami Wakita (Julia Harriman) flat-out explaining obvious character defects in Sato. A little more simplicity and a lot less sweaty screenwriting would've served the gorgeous-looking Ultraman: Rising well.
In the 1980s, the Brat Pack dominated Hollywood. This term was bequeathed to a group of young performers (including Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, and others) by journalist David Blum. That Brat Pack phrase followed them during all of their subsequent cinematic exploits, with some "members" feeling like it cursed their careers. Actor Andrew McCarthy is especially tormented by that term and how it molded his life. Now, in the modern world, McCarthy has directed and anchored the new documentary Brats. Here, he tracks down members of the Brat Pack, pop culture observers, and even Blum himself (among others) to dissect everything related to the Brat Pack.
Brats is a hollow movie. No matter what intent McCarthy had in carrying out this project, in execution, he's failed making the urgency behind getting labeled "a brat" something relatable to viewers. McCarthy's surface-level approach to this topic avoids getting into anything messy, including extensive discussions on potential missed roles (we only hear about one unrealized Estevez/McCarthy vehicle) or subsequent box office failures after the "Brat Pack" term was coined. Without those darker elements, it's difficult to ascertain the colloquialism's negative impact on himself and his industry chums. Even opting for a safer route doesn't allow for incidentally insightful interviews with various film industry legends like Rob Lowe or Lauren Shuler Donner. It's all just so frivolous.
Interview segments with writers like Kate Erbland and Ira Madison III provide the most relatable and interesting perspectives on the pop culture era McCarthy helped mold. That final confrontation between McCarthy and Blum is also a prickly thrill thanks to Blum's very understandable sense of frustration over the actor's lingering resentment. Otherwise, Brats is a rudimentary documentary that often lapses into shockingly inept filmmaking. Chiefly, why do interview segments with Ally Sheedy have noticeably worse audio recording than any other portion of the movie? Many of the movies McCarthy and other Brat Pack members headlined became classics handed down from one generation to the next. It's next to impossible to imagine Brats securing that level of longevity.
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