Zebraman (2004)
"Turn on the Black and White!"
Not Rated / Color / 115 Minutes

WARNING: THIS CAPSULE REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Do you recall all the crazy hopes and dreams you had when you were a child? Besides being a policeman, doctor, race car driver, or army guy, many of us wee lads (and lasses) had aspirations to become superheroes. But, unlike the soft-spoken Shinichi Ichikawa in Zebraman, we gave up on those crazy dreams way before reaching adulthood.

Shinichi is a schoolteacher with a pretty lousy life: His wife and daughter walk all over him, his son hates him, and no one at school ever seems to take this poor guy seriously. The only thing that brings poor Shinichi any joy at all, is his odd obsession with a short-lived 1970's tokusatsu show called, you guessed it, Zebraman. Shinichi is such a big "Zebra-fan," that he has painstakingly created his own Zebraman costume.

Eventually, not content with just parading around the house late at night in his superhero garb, Shinichi begins making nocturnal forays out of the house. On one such occasion, in an attempt to show off his costume to a student from his class, Shinichi accidentally comes upon the scene of a rape and ends up battling a crab-masked gent with glowing green eyes.

The meek professor pulls off some amazing acrobatic moves, and dodges his opponent's attacks before delivering a fatal "Zebra Screw Punch." After messily dispatching the bad guy, Shinichi runs home, and just narrowly misses being seen by a pair of government agents.

Shinichi's heroic exploits continue to mount as he uses his newly discovered powers to pummel rapists, thieves, and thugs. It is not until later that he discovers that the sudden rise in crime is due to an infestation of small blob-like aliens who plan on taking over the world. And oddly enough, the aliens blueprint for world domination was taken from the scripts of the old Zebraman TV series!

Shinichi gets his hands on the Zebraman scripts and discovers that in the final episode, Zebraman must fly in order to save the Earth. This leads to several hilarious moments where poor Shinichi attempts to fly and gets horribly hurt in the process. (Amazingly he only suffers a few minor cuts and bruises after leaping from trees and bridges. In fact his costume suffers more physical damage than he does.)

Through the course of the film, Shinichi befriends a new student named Shinpei Asano who has been in a wheelchair since witnessing his father's suicide. And wouldn't you know it, this crippled lad also happens to be a Zebraman fan. The slimers from space manage to take poor Shinpei hostage and keep him imprisoned within the local school.

The authorities plan on bombing the school to destroy the alien menace, but the leader of the government's anti-alien squad decides that only Zebraman can save the day, so he delays the school's destruction. Eventually, Shinichi arrives on the scene on a motorcycle with a custom Zebra-striped paint job (where the hell did he get the bike?!) and marches into the school's gymnasium.

He sees Shinpei trapped within a jelly-like holding cell and begins to fight his way through a sea of blob critters to save the young boy. Shinichi kicks and punches his amorphous attackers away but is eventually taken down. As he hits the floor, his Zebraman mask falls off and rolls away. But suddenly, something amazing happens as he reaches for his mask: Shinichi literally morphs into the real Zebraman!

Looking totally bad-ass in his new costume, Shinichi plows through the alien invaders and rescues Shinpei, then carries the boy up to the roof of the gymnasium. Along the way, Shinichi splatters dozens of alien slimeballs; the "defeated" slime creatures begin to combine with one another and eventually turn into one giant alien that towers over the school.

The massive alien "boss" grabs poor Shinpei and dangles him in the air for a moment before dropping the paraplegic child. Shinichi leaps off the building, grabs Shinpei, and suddenly flies into the sky! Shinichi brings Shinpei safely back to his mother, then turns and once again lifts off into the sky to do battle with the marauding alien monster.

As Shin... ah hell, as Zebraman flies towards the alien, the creature suddenly grows a protoplasmic laser cannon out of its head! It fires multiple laser beams at the approaching hero and misses each time. Angered by the fact that it has terrible aim, the giant creature charges up its laser weapon and fires a concentrated beam of energy at Zebraman.

The horse-haired hero takes the blast head on and keeps flying towards his foe. For a brief moment, Zebraman vanishes from sight and then suddenly... he becomes a flying Zebra that fires a powerful laser from its mouth! (No I'm not kidding; this is just too damned weird to make up!) The striped Pegasus uses its oral-laser to engrave an enormous 'Z' in the alien's "forehead," and causes the massive extraterrestrial to explode.

With Japan (and the world) safe, Zebraman is then taken into custody (i.e. arrested) by the government and taken to a courthouse. (Ok, hold the phone. Why the hell is Japan's savior being taken to court?! What is he being charged with? Destruction of private property? We never find out!) Fueled by a mob of supporters, Shinichi proudly walks up the steps of the courthouse, puts on a quick show for the crowd, then runs into the building to face the Japanese penal system.

Zebraman is an absurd movie, that is a lot of fun to watch. Lead actor Sho Aikawa does a great job as Shinichi Ichikawa and easily leaps back and forth from being a kindhearted klutz to a stalwart superhero. And speaking of which, it is nice to see someone fully embrace their destiny as a superhero in a film. In most of the superhero movies I've seen, the main character usually doesn't want to immediately embrace their newly acquired special abilities (usually out of fear) or uses their powers for the wrong reasons.

Here, the main character gladly takes on his heroic duties and fully immerses himself in the role. And not only is Shinichi living his dream, but, as he declares later in the film, he is also fighting for everyone else's right to dream. (How friggin' unselfish is that?) Next to turning into a flying laser-spitting Zebra, this is the big difference between Zebraman and most superheroes who fight for truth, justice, and all that other boring stuff.

Zebraman boasts a pretty good musical score, some decent (though not entirely convincing) CGI effects, and a good supporting cast. The film's only real weakness is the storyline, which contains several plotholes. Some are truly minor, like Shinichi's sudden ownership of a "Zebra-cycle," while others are a bit more severe. For instance, throughout the film, it seems as if Shinichi is going to start falling in love with Shinpei Asano's mother.

There is definitely some chemistry between the two of them, and Shinichi even dreams about Kana Asano. However, nothing ever comes of this; it is just sort of forgotten by the time the third act comes along. But this is only a minor complaint, because I truly enjoyed this offbeat superhero film. It is wonderfully strange, has plenty of action and comedy, and offers up a nice tale of a man that is truly "living the dream."

For its creativity and sheer entertainment value, I am quite happy to award Zebraman with:


- THREE AND A HALF 'RADS' -

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