Here we have it; another Japanese movie where guys in rubber suits fight each other and destroy Tokyo! Now I'm actually something of a fan of this genre, and I consider the original Godzilla to be a masterpiece. War of the Gargantuas doesn't even come close to Godzilla. It is an exercise in pure camp. But camp of course camp has an appeal of its own.
The plot is pretty standard Diakaiju fare. A smuggling vessel is attacked by a giant squid. Then a hairy green giant appears, fights the squid, and sinks the boat. More sightings follow up and down the coast. Scientists dismiss speculation that this is the same monster they had raised years before (more on that later) at one point attributing a report from a group of tourists to a bad LSD trip. Soon, the not-so-jolly green giant comes to shore and begins wreaking havoc. The army drives him up into the mountains, where they nearly destroy him- but then a second, brown giant comes to his rescue!
The two Gargantuas, as they're called throughout the movie, spend several days lounging around a lake, until they have a falling out over the morality of eating humans. Spurned by his 'brother', the green giant makes a beeline for the ocean- looking like a mutated track star as he runs headlong across the countryside. Inevitably, the two duke it out again, devastating much of Tokyo in the process, and are both killed by an underwater volcano.
This film is a semi-sequel to incredibly lousy Frankenstein Conquers the World, although there's little continuity between the two. The word 'Frankenstein' is never used here. And when the scientists flash-back to the monster's early years, instead of seeing footage from the previous film, we're treated to new footage in which the infant Frankenstein/Gargantua looks completely different than he did in the other movie. There's also the fact that he's at least doubled in size, but never mind.
Of course the scientists tell everyone they can that the brown Gargantua poses no danger, and of course no-one listens. There's also the usual theory about the monsters' origins. It's conjectured that a piece of the brown Gargantua was somehow cut off, and when exposed to a source of protein, grew into a second, green Gargantua. This means that if the army blows them up, there could be hundreds of them! This information is by turns taken to heart and ignored by the generals.
Plus there's a fairly interesting bit about how the green Gargantua is frightened by bright lights. This results in the citizens of Tokyo turning all of their lights on during attacks, and allows the army to repel him with searchlights. Later, he loses this fear because he realizes that there tends to be food (i.e. people) near light sources. Personally, I think he stops being afraid of the light because the plot requires him to.
And when our heroes go to the lake to find and hopefully study the monsters, there are numerous hikers, campers, and even boaters enjoying themselves. If I heard that a man-eating aquatic giant was last seen nearby, I'd pick another fishing spot, but hey, that's just me. The only thing more ridiculous than the sight of all these tourists is the speech we get about "youth flourishing in the face of evil."
Overshadowing the not unexpected problems of continuity and logic, there's also the matter of the acting. The acting in most Kaiju (Japanese monster) movies is a bit stilted, perhaps a little too broad. What we have here is much worse. The American scientist (Russ Tamblyn, filling in for the late Nick Adams) strikes the wrong tone in every scene. He's cool and laid back when he should be tense. He's cracking jokes when he should be terrified. And he never once sounds like the kind of guy who spends most of his time in a lab. He comes across more as a playboy or a wise guy.
But it may actually not be the actor's fault, for this movie contains the worst dubbing job I have ever seen. Rather than try to describe it, I will give examples.
- One villager, on seeing the green monster emerge from the sea, cries out "Hey, look at that!"
- The scientist, planning their search for the monsters- "I'll go to the Japan Alps." "And I'll go to the beach." "Good." With a plan like that, the monster is as good as found.
- Asked about the risks posed by their research, the head scientist assures the crowd that "We experiment only when it is safe."
- The army publicly states that their attacks are meant to "prevent him from escaping to the sea- and to destroy him of course." It would appear that the Japanese Self Defense Force has placed Captain Obvious in charge of public relations.
After all the time I've spent listing this movie's failings, I would like to say that there is reason to watch it. Because the monster costumes are much lighter than those in other films, and allow more freedom of moment, the final battle between the Gargantuas is actually very well staged. I'm told that Quinton Terantino showed the actors in Kill Bill footage from Gargantuas before having them perform their combat sequences.
More importantly, this movie is simply so bad that it's kind of good, in its own goofy way. Most of the time I was more bemused than annoyed by the movie's flaws, and towards the end I found myself enjoying the experience. It seems that in its adaptation for American audiences, War of the Gargantuas was transformed from a fairly standard monster movie into a minor gem of unintentional comedy. It's a bad movie sure, but it's a Good bad movie.
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