One night inside their home in Japan, Professor Sato (voiced by Gedde Watanabe) tells his young baseball-loving son Kenji (Hiro Nakamura) that “Ultraman’s most important task is to find balance.” Moments later, Sato receives a message that the kaiju monster Gigantron is coming. Sato goes outside and transforms into Ultraman, a giant superhero who fights such monsters. Cut to 20 years later, and Kenji is now a professional baseball player followed by Ken (Christopher Sean). When he moves from the Los Angeles Dodgers to Japan’s Yomiuri Giants, he takes on his father’s role as the monster-fighting Ultraman.
Since 1966, this superhero creation by Eiji Tsuburaya has garnered its share of spinoffs, and this Netflix version focuses on themes of family, parenthood, and finding balance in life. This may sound a little high for young viewers, and the life lesson sequences bore my 6-year-old a bit, but there were enough action scenes to ultimately hold his attention.
Ken faces his own ego, monsters and Dr. Oda (Kione Yang), the head of the Kaiju defense force. The issue of fatherhood begins when Ken adopts a cute baby kaiju named Ami (Julia Harriman). Shannon Tindle directs this film, which he co-wrote with Marc Haimes.
Lincoln Lund (Bedley Griffin), a child who loves spies, is over-excited to have a spy for a new grandmother when his grandfather Pop Pop (Piotr Michael) becomes engaged to Myrtle (Alex Cazares), a former professional spy. As Lincoln and his 10 sisters prepare to head to their tropical wedding, he assures his soon-to-be Gran that if enemies from her past show up, he’ll help her save the day. Of course, an old nemesis does marriage crash.
This movie, an extension of Nickelodeon’s long-running, Emmy-winning series “The Loud House,” has some smart touches befitting blockbuster spy movies like, of course, the James Bond movie “No Time to Die.” And it’s sweet to see Pop Pop worry that he’s too boring for Myrtle, only to become a hero and develop a new sense of confidence. Kyle Marshall, who helped create over 60 episodes of the series, directed. Whitney Wetta and Jeff Sayers, also series veterans, wrote the screenplay.
With lots of car chases, traps, and silly family humor, the movie should entertain older preschoolers and younger elementary school kids.
“Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation”
Kids don’t have to be die-hard fans of the Disney Channel series Big City Greens, created by brothers Shane and Chris Houghton, to love this movie version, which sends the registered Green family into space. Wild child Cricket Green (Chris Houghton) is in constant search of adventure, but his farm family can’t afford SpaceX’s prices to actually travel the world. When they are offered a free trip if they can save a failing asteroid farm, Cricket persuades the team – his predictability-loving father Bill (Bob Joles), his sister Tilly (Marive Herrington) and Gramma Alice (Artemis Pembdani ) – take the ultimate vacation. Bill’s motorcycle-riding ex-wife Nancy (Wendi McLendon-Covey) and Cricket’s rich BFF Remy (Zeno Robinson) are also part of the cast.
The charm and humor of the characters, which make the show so watchable, are on full display and the musical numbers should hold the attention of the little ones. Anna O’Brian, who has helmed several episodes of the series, directed.
“Blue’s Big City Adventure”
Most parents who have watched TV with a preschooler have probably heard the words, “My handy, lacy notebook!” at least 100 times. It’s a catchphrase on the hit educational show “Blue’s Clues & You!”, which follows a predictable formula: The host, Josh (Joshua Dela Cruz), jots down facts in his notebook that he and his canine companion, Blue (with voiced by Traci Paige Johnson), follow along to solve mysteries.
In the film, Josh and Blue leave the animated, colorful Storybook World, where the show takes place, for real-world Manhattan. Josh has an audition for a Broadway show, but when he realizes he’s lost his precious notebook, which has the address for the audition, the duo dance and sing around New York searching for clues to find it. Original ‘Blue’s Clues’ host Steve Burns returns to the story and there are cartoons, talking salt shakers, alarm clocks and bars of soap to fascinate younger children. Preschoolers should love the film’s super lively atmosphere, and the inclusion of the casting is a big plus.
Music video director Matt Stawski directed here, and Angela C. Santomero, who co-created the show and created “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” wrote the script.
“Kleks Academy”
Based on a novel by Polish author Jan Brzechwa, this dark fantasy opens in the cavernous, creepy realm of the Wolfurs, where werewolf-like villains declare that “not a single creature will stand in our way again. ” Cut to a Polish neighborhood in New York, where Ada (Antonina Litwiniak), a scooter-riding youth, zips through the streets and calls a rude taxi driver a “slut” (not the best way to introduce a character to the children, but redeems it herself later). He is quickly recruited to join Kleks Academy, a Hogwarts school of magic. Ada is skeptical, but her kind (and mysterious) neighbor urges her to go, telling her to follow her destiny and solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance. “Which will you choose: the world you know or the greatest adventure of your life?” the neighbor asks.
Adults may be bothered by the dubbed English dialogue, but kids who love (and aren’t too afraid of) darker themes should be charmed by the magical realism of the world Ada enters. There are lessons about empathy and believing in yourself that help Ada transform from a tough, cynical city kid into a courageous leader. Maciej Kawulski directed and Krzysztof Gureczny and Agnieszka Kruk wrote the screenplay.
