Pros: Fun, Battles are cool, Ghidrah, music,acting
Cons: Godzilla suit, stock footage, rather silly
The Bottom Line: While one of the better original series sequels, I wouldn't say this is one of the best Godzilla movies, but it is still fun and fans will enjoy it.
flash-hammer's Full Review: Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero
Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
This movie seems to go by more names than I've had dinners, so I'll clear up right away that I'm going to be referring to it as Invasion of the Astro Monsters, because it's what my VHS is called, it's the title I grew up with, and I'm writing a batch of Godzilla reviews, and I can see that typing Godzilla Vs.... is going to be getting pretty tedious in the foreseeable future, so I'm going to try and avoid it.
Invasion of the Astro Monsters was one of the first Godzilla movies I ever saw, it vies with Terror of Mechagodzilla for the title of the second Godzilla movie I ever saw actually, with Destroy All Monsters being the first. I first witnessed it recorded off late night Channel 4 in the early 90s, when my age was still in single figures, and I was susceptible to all sorts of fantastic movies.
To clear up another name issue with this movie, in this review, I'm going to be calling the 3-Headed Golden space dragon Ghidrah. Why? not only because I don't belive the 'King' title got applied until 1991's Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah, but the 'o' is absent because it's how it sounds like the characters pronounce it, and the prior movie was actually called Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster. It also allows me to easily differentiate between the Showa(read: Original) and Heisei(read: 1990s) interpretations of the character.
The movie follows two astronauts, one Japanese named Fuji(Akira Takarada - Godzilla: King of the Monsters) and an American named Glenn(Nick Adams - Rebel Without a Cause). They are assigned to go to a mysterious new planet on the other side of Jupiter dubbe 'Planet X'.
Fuji is reluctant to go though, because he is experiencing family trouble, as he believes his sister Haruno(Keiko Sawai - Dogora) is dating a waste of space in the form of inventor Tetsuo(Akira Kubo - Gamera: Guardian of the Universe). He is being pretty unreasonable about it, despite the fact that he has just sold the rights for a bizarre sonic device to an international company, his contact the beautiful Miss Namikawa(Kumi Mizuno - Matango), who is coincidentally dating Glenn.
When they land on Planet X, Glenn and Fuji are invited into an underground lab by a chap named 'the Controller'(Yoshio Tsuchiya - Daikaiju Baran). He informs them that they are in immense danger, and they must come in before Monster Zero ravages them. They enter and discover 2 things, first of all, the people of Planet X(sometimes called Xites, sometimes Xers and sometimes Xians) all look like Japanese Devo fans, and that Monster Zero is in fact the monster that attacked the Earth a year earlier, which we know as Ghidrah.
The people of Planet X make an offer Earth cannot refuse, a miracle cure for all illness in exchange for them being allowed to take Godzilla and Rodan to Planet X to fight Ghidrah. After a spectacular battle where they drive Ghidrah away, the people of Earth return to listen to the tape with the miracle cure on it, only to discover a declaration of war unless Earth swears allegiance to Planet X. Naturally we refuse, and it turns out that this was all a trap to give them Godzilla and Rodan, so they can control them, as they can Ghidrah, via magnetic waves. Glenn learns that Namikawa is also one of hundreds of identical clones from Planet X, who has been assigned to spy on him. Nothing is looking good about now.
The monsters are unleashed upon the Earth, and do great damage, this is before they realise exactly why the Xians were so eager to buy Tetsuo's invention, it contains the only sound that can screw up their computerised brains and tamper with their magnetic waves. Once they find out a wave to play this noise loud enough to free Godzilla and Rodan, you can bet they are gonna be pretty angry about being put under mind control, and it's the forces of Planet X that are gonna feel the brunt of their rage.
While Invasion of the Astro Monsters may not feature the best plot in the Godzilla series, and it was pretty much superseded with the similar plotted but grander scale 1968 series entry Destroy All Monsters, and does have one of the most comically huge flaws ever(why don't they just come and take Rodan and Godzilla to start with?), as well as Godzilla's much loather Highland Fling moment, but on the whole, I feel it's one of the more solid and entertaining series entries, especially from the original era.
You see, while Godzilla is by now clearly Earth's saviour, he hasn't quite degenerated into a complete dork as he does in the 1970s, this is still deadpan serious stuff compared to the likes of Godzilla Vs. Megalon. This is a fairly enjoyable medium, neither the utterly ridiculous Superhero of the 1970s, nor the dark Atomic Death Metaphor of the 1950s, here Godzilla is somewhere between the two. His radioactive nature is referenced, but it isn't exactly a huge plot point, although one has to assume it's how he can breath in space.
So yeah, while the plot has it's share of sillieness, and is basically a cross between Ghidrah the Three-Headed Monster and Destroy All Monsters, but while watching it, I'll be damned if you don't think it pulls these off well. I mean, I really don't see the Xians motivation for wanting to take over Earth(let's see, you live on Planet Devo and your girlfriend is guaranteed to look like Kumi Mizuno circa 1965...I'd take that over this place anytime), but this is good-hearted, silly 60s Sci-Fi fun.
We have three of Toho's most famous and well loved monsters, who have 2 Two-on-One scraps which are really some of Toho's best work in terms of battles, even if Rodan doesn't really do all that much and they contain quite a bit of stock footage, both from Ghidrah and Rodan, but they are exciting, lots of stuff gets smashed and they aren't as OTT and silly as the likes of Godzilla Vs. Gigan(although that may not necessary be a good thing), the other main downside to them is that it doesn't actually feature a lot of Kaiju(that's Monster) action, with only the fight on Planet X and the one on Earth, interrupted by a lot of human plot and some city smashing.
However, I'm actually glad to say the movie pulls it off, because it succeeds where a lot of Godzilla movies fail, in that it's human characters are fairly well done. Sure most of them are pretty stereotypical roles, but they are well written, and the Namikawa/Glenn romance is about as close to erotic as the series ever got, and Namikawa was a pretty cool character. Shame they didn't bring back the Xians instead of those lame cockroaches and Planet of the Apes wannabes that tried to invade in later movies.
Effects in this movie are also in no-man's land in terms of quality. Ghidrah, still a fairly complex and cool puppet, is an awesome achievement for the 1960s, and still holds up pretty well. Godzilla's face has been squashed to make him look less menacing, and his suit is becoming less animalistic and more humanoid, and suffers from 'muppet mouth'. Needless to say this isn't my favourite Godzilla suit. Rodan looks pretty nifty though, if, also, not even remotely menacing facially.
The miniatures are the work of Eiji Tsuburaya, this would indeed be the final movie of the Honda/Tsuburaya/Ifukube/Tanaka partnership that founded the Godzilla series,and as the man's input would suggest, are of an immaculately high standard. The Planet X sets are pretty nifty as well, and are better attempts at what the original Star Trek tried a few times.
Acting is, for once, not hindered by bad dubbing, because I'm actually rather fond of the dubbing my tape has, and Nick Adams was actually recorded speaking in English, which makes it easier to gauge.
Adams was an almost star in the USA, who came to Japan after failing to win an Oscar. He was signed to do 6 movies for Toho, but only worked on 2, this and Frankenstein Conquers the World. His off-screen romance with co-star in both movies, Mizuno, is well documented, but as is his admiration for other co-star Takarada. Both men play their roles well, and even though one is dubbed and the other is speaking another language, you can sense a nice friendly partnership between the two, even when Adams is delivering hilarious dialogue with a straight face ("you stinkin rats!" etc)
Kubo is, along with Takarada, a Godzilla series legend, and this is just another of his well portrayed roles. It may not be one of the better characters he played, but he does seem to go about it in the correct, slightly goofy, fashion.
Akira Ifukube Score = greatness. Equation never fails. While Godzilla never quite got a haunting and serious theme like he did for the original, for his heroic turns, Ifukube could come up with some nice pieces to help get accross the message of the King of the Monsters as Earth's greatest hope. Far more memorable is his 'bad' music, used for Ghidrah and the scenes of destruction though, which is as great as it is memorable.
While it may not be the best in the series, I have mostly positive feelings towards Invasion of the Astro Monsters. It comes from a short-lived time for the series, where it could be light-hearted fun, but not farcical chaos. While the quality of some of it's effects are questionable, and the use of stock footage annoys me, I still feel this movie is strong enough to warrant 3-Stars. If I were asked to name the 5 Best Showa era movies, naming this as one of them wouldn't be that stressful a decision for me. It's good fun. And at the end of the day, that's all it aims to be.
Year: 1965
Titles: Kaiju Daisenso
Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero
Monster Zero
Invasion of the Astro Monsters
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