Ultraman Geed: The Movie - Connect the Wishes! Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Ultraman Geed: The Movie - Connect the Wishes! Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 6, 2020

This is the movie only release for the 2018 film 'Ultraman Geed: The Movie - Connect the Wishes!' The featureless disc is identical to that found in Mill Creek's larger, but not exceedingly more expensive, 'Ultraman Geed' Series + Movie Set. The film was briefly covered in that review. Find below a full video and audio review for this individual release which Mill Creek brought to market several months after that complete collection. At time of writing, there is no individual release housing only the TV series, making this release redundant for those who already purchased the boxed set.

Ultra Heroes.

Official synopsis: The Gigantic Mechanical Brain Gillvalis and the Galactron Army, intent on wiping out all intelligent lifeforms in the universe, close in on Earth. Riku Asakura heads for Okinawa, where there are said to be clues to the "Red Steel" sought by Gilbrais. There, Riku encounters Ail (Yuika Motokariya), who realizes that he is Ultraman and assigns him an important mission. Meanwhile, the Galactron Army begins attacking Okinawa in search of the "Red Steel." Ultraman Geed, Orb, and Zero rush to Earth, but Geed's hasty actions in sticking to his mission put the Ultraman team in even more danger! Will Ultraman Geed and his cohorts be able to stop the mighty power of Gillvalis?

The Geed movie clocks in at a meager 72 minutes, about the same runtime as the Ultraman Orb film. It's also a vastly superior film. Gone is the feeling of frivolous storytelling within an anniversary prism, replaced with a more focused, intense tale that furthers the Geed story while also crossing over with Orb, bringing back both Gai/Orb and Jugglus Juggler, one of the franchise's best villains. Other crossovers and fan service winks and nods make an appearance, but the movie stays focused and true to the current state of the Ultraman universe. It finds a larger scope and while it might lack a more impactful cinematic flavor and features production values similar, if not identical, to the show, it expands beyond the formula and narrative limitations of a single episode and builds a more necessarily complex picture fit for the series. It's a proper and satisfying experience in the contemporary Ultraman universe.

Ultraman Geed: The Movie - Connect the Wishes! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ultraman Geed: The Movie - Connect the Wishes! blasts onto Blu-ray with a very good 1080p transfer framed at 1.78:1. The digitally sourced image is practically picture-perfect with very limited artifacts (banding, noise) getting in the way of delightful high yield clarity. It's reliably sharp and tight, with only some of the shoddier visual effects struggling to maintain the textural finesse of the live action footage. Facial and clothing details are meticulously reproduced; the natural complexity to these elements, including hair, is very impressive, while varied environments, ranging from dense cityscapes to natural vegetation, yield highly impressive definition. The rubbery Ultra and Kaiju suits look terrific, too; close-ups are more than capable of revealing every fine detail and fans will certainly want to pause and explore the intricacies as opportunities arise. Colors are lively and refuse to budge from a pleasantly neutral contrast. Clothes pop with impressive depth while natural greens are beautifully dense and deep. Black levels are largely fine, only rarely straying a bit too light. Flesh tones appear accurate. Ultraman fans are going to be very pleased with Mill Creek's presentation.

Ultraman Geed: The Movie - Connect the Wishes! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ultraman Geed: The Movie - Connect the Wishes! features a single DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack in the native Japanese language (optional English subtitles, which default to "on," are included). Even limited to two channels, the track proves plenty impressive, presenting superb spacial realization and excellent clarity to most all elements. Certainly the track would benefit from wide engagement -- a couple of surrounds, at least, and of course a subwoofer channel -- but listeners will find one of the most active left/right outputs the format has to offer. It's so busy and detailed and aggressive it nearly passes for surround at some junctures, anyway, and there's no shortage of elemental detail to be found regardless of how active a particular scene may be. This especially holds true for the various Ultra battles with Kaiju. The biggest want in these scenes is low end extension, but the left and right speakers output enough essential depth to at least complement the action whenever a character crashes through a building, footfalls rumble, or weapons blast. The track offers realistic location ambience, too, whether out on city streets where the sonic activity is more diversified, expressive, and numerous in opportunity, or gentle atmospherics in low key environments, such as seaside in an early scene towards film start. Dialogue is clear and images perfectly to the front-center location.

Ultraman Geed: The Movie - Connect the Wishes! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This individual Blu-ray release of Ultraman Geed: The Movie - Connect the Wishes! is identical to the disc Mill Creek bundled into the TV series set. That disc contains no extras, and neither does this one. The main menu screen offers only options to "Play" the movie and toggle subtitles on and off. Mill Creek has included a MovieSpree digital copy code. However, no DVD disc is included and this release does not ship with a slipcover.

Ultraman Geed: The Movie - Connect the Wishes! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ultraman Geed: The Movie - Connect the Wishes! delivers a typical modern Ultraman experience. There's certainly nothing profound or prominent here -- it plays as little more than an extended length episode -- but it's well done, entertaining, and throws a few series surprises in for good measure, including, of course, several Ultraman cameos. Fans should find the movie to be a fine and fun, albeit lightning quick (clocking in at a mere 72 minutes), Ultraman jaunt that puts a nice little bow on the Geed storyline, which is, of course, critical viewing prior to watching this movie. As such, and considering that, at time of writing, the TV series set, which also includes a copy of the movie (and the exact same disc at that), only costs about double this disc, one cannot help but feel this to be an entirely superfluous release. For those wanting to buy it -- perhaps just to own as much Ultraman content as possible and support Mill Creek's dedication to the series or just want the film in its own case with dedicated artwork -- it does deliver high quality video and audio presentations as well as a Movie Spree digital copy of the film, allowing fans to enjoy it on the go. The movie and the Blu-ray are recommended, but more so as part of the set which includes the corresponding TV series.