We’ve seen Gamera fight the human race. We’ve seen him fight other kaiju. Now it’s time for the natural evolution of any kaiju series: it’s time for Gamera to fight aliens!
Which is basically the same as him fighting other kaiju, it’s just that they’re from space now. Only now, Gamera will probably spend a good chunk of the movie being mind-controlled.
Or maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Let’s see what ‘Gamera VS Viras‘ has to offer.
Aliens have come to conquer the Earth for its natural resources. Unfortunately for them, Gamera is having none of it, and he damages their ship in orbit. In retribution, the aliens concoct a diabolical plan: to mind control the Earth’s protector and turn him against his home! Now humanity must find a way to overcome the invaders and free Gamera!
Also there’s a scout camp shared between Japanese and American kids that get embroiled in the whole thing. Which means more English-speaking characters! It must be Christmas!
Alas, there is no so-bad-it’s-good English dialogue. It’s all dry, boring, and coherent. Christmas is cancelled, everyone…
Unlike the other Gamera movies, this one actually has main characters. Two of them, in fact. Scouts Masao and Jim, two young boys with a pension for pranks and mischief. Shortly after befriending Gamera, the aliens take them hostage as leverage against the Friend to All Children and mind control him. Now it’s up to the boys to escape, free Gamera, and save the Earth. I really like this idea; it’s a good way to blend human characters into giant monster/alien silliness. It’s a fun idea for a Gamera story.
Even if both boys are as flat and wooden as the rest of the cast because it’s still a kaiju movie from the 1960s. But at least they have established traits that play an active role in the plot. Baby steps, people, we’re getting somewhere here.
Visually speaking, the movie is definitely a downgrade over the previous movie. It’s not entirely bad, it’s more of a mixed bag. The Gamera suit can still be goofy, but it can also be pretty cool; they even gave him moving eyes, which help bring the titular monster to life. The sets look great, the effects are extremely rough and dated, and the miniature work is… non-existant. The music is catchy as hell, though.
The aliens in this movie are pretty damn creepy. While they look like ordinary people, they move in stiff, robotic motions, and darkness reveals their otherworldly, creepy eyes. They’ve even got weird detachable limbs. Sure, the effects are silly by today’s standards, but for the time, they were fairly unsettling. They’re especially chilling since the rest of the movie is so bright and light-hearted. All in all: thumbs up.
Even if they’re idiots. “Hey kids, you can do whatever you want in our ship. Just don’t try to attack us or escape. Got that? Cool, thanks. Don’t let out the squid monster we keep in a cage. Lunch is at twelve.”
Also, I don’t get the squid monster. They keep it in a cage, and they freak out when the boys trick them into thinking it escaped. Yet when they start losing, they rush to the squid and call it “Boss?” It’s one or the other, movie, you can’t have it both ways!
This is definitely the silliest Gamera movie of the lot so far. Lots of slapstick comedy, goofy music, and other such childish shenanigans you’d expect from a kid’s movie. You can tell they’re leaning all-in on the lighter tone. Which I am perfectly fine with; I came here for cheesy fun, and by god, this movie is eager to deliver!
That said, it does kind of kill the pacing. Sometimes the movie spends so long on silly gags that you can’t help but roll your eyes and ask for it to get a god damn move on. It gets even worse when they start flashing back to the previous movies, slapping in stock footage for no other purpose than to fill out a few extra minutes of the runtime.
And by a few, I mean over fifteen. The movie literally says, “We have fifteen minutes, let’s look at Gamera’s past,” and it recaps all three of the prior films in a nearly twenty minute long montage! This movie is ninety minutes long, and almost a third of it is filler! There’s not even a point to it, the movie literally just wastes your time!
Oh, but now the aliens now Gamera likes kids. You’d think they would know that after seeing him help children escape their trap the scene before said twenty-minute filler montage. I guess they didn’t notice.
Except they did because they go back to kidnap those same kids… Don’t think about it, alright? The writers clearly didn’t.
By the way, it’s not the only time this movie recycles footage. Every scene of Gamera destroying stuff is taken straight from one of the previous movies. They don’t even bother dubbing the dialogue, and the footage from the first movie is still in monochrome! I’ve seen some lazy, cheap kaiju films in my day, but this one might just take the cake!
The movie doesn’t do its own kaiju stuff until the very end of the film when the aliens merge together into a giant monster, Viras. Which would be cool, if the suit looked better than garbage and the blue-screen effects of the transformation weren’t as poorly aged as milk in the summer sun. The final battle is basically a Pokémon fight, with the kids yelling commands to Gamera and the alien monster going down its checklist of moves until it dies. Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t having fun watching it!
My standards are low, I know. Just give me two dudes in rubber suits doing goofy shit and I’m there all day every day.
Overall, this is the weakest Gamera movie I’ve reviewed so far. The story had promise, but what’s the point of watching a kaiju movie when almost all the kaiju stuff is blatantly recycled from other films? I don’t want to hear Gamera’s Greatest Hits, I want to hear the new album!
Not to say it’s completely irredeemable. It has plenty of moments that are fun and charming. With that said, however, I doubt I’ll be returning to this movie at any point. Still, this one watch wasn’t entirely a waste of time.
But if we’re already pulling out the cash-saving kaiju recycling, then I can’t help but be worried over the next few movies. Hopefully this one proves to be a hole in the road rather than the beginning of a steady decline.
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