Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) – Review

Don’t trust aliens. If there is any takeaway from Toho’s science fiction movies it would be that one little tidbit. In 1964’s Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster the series’ first introduced us to the outer space threat of King Ghidorah but in Invasion of Astro-Monster we get honest to goodness aliens who mean us ill will, but time and again the people of Earth fall for the old, “We are peacefully aliens who want nothing more than to help you scientifically inferior Earthlings, can we borrow your monsters?” This sixth film in the Godzilla franchise was a Japanese/American co-production with Toho Studio teaming up with United Productions of America and American producer Henry G. Saperstein and continues Godzilla’s journey toward being planetary savior opposed be being an allegory of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

As if to mirror the nature of the production the story deals with the Space Authority launching a mission that consists of Japanese astronaut Fuji (Akira Takarada) and American astronaut Glenn (Nick Adams) and who seem to be part of a program that was modeled after the Mercury space missions of the 60s. This particular mission that Fuji and Glenn find themselves on is to explore a planet that somehow has remained hidden behind Jupiter all these years, the scientific explanation of how this is possibly is that it’s a “dark planet” and gleefully ignores facts of planetary orbits which would make this planet being hidden all this time pretty much impossible. Regardless our two heroes are sent to explore this new heavenly body that has been named Planet X.

 

Sadly it's not this Planet X.

When they land their XP-1 spacecraft on Planet X Fuji is shocked to discover very human looking footprints in the planetary dust, and when he calls for Glenn to inform him of this startling find he gets no response. Glenn and the XP-1 are missing. You’ve got to admit this is a pretty gripping opening for what is to be a rather light and fun science fiction/monster romp, and none of the actors in the film treat the subject matter in any kind of campy way, it’s all dealt with rather seriously. The same unfortunately can’t be said of the kaiju (giant monsters) in this film as they tend to come off as if they are doing various Three Stooges routines.  Godzilla’s goofy victory dance is a prime example of this.

We learn that Glenn is perfectly safe and soon Fuji is brought down beneath the surface of Planet X where he meets the seemingly benevolent human-like beings called the Xiliens, it’s here that our duo learn that the people of Planet X have been forced to live underground due to the ravaging attacks by a creature they call “Monster Zero” but once seen Fuji and Glenn immediately recognize it as King Ghidorah who had just recently been repulsed from his attack on Earth by the combined might of Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra. The Xilien leader known as The Controller (Yoshio Tsuchiya) requests that the two astronauts return to Earth with an offer that consists of the Xiliens providing mankind the cure for cancer if we would be so kind as to lend them Godzilla and Rodan to fight Monster Zero. Fuji and Glenn agree to bring this offer before the World Council but the two can’t help but feel there is something fishy about the Xiliens.

 

If we ever do meet aliens from outer space I do hope they have this kind of fashion sense.

Meanwhile back on Earth Fuji’s sister Haruno (Keiko Sawai) is dating an inventor named Tetsuo (Akira Kubo) who just so happens to have invented a personal alarm device that has attracted the attention of a group of Xiliens covertly based on Earth. Under the guise of a Toy Company business woman and Xilien spy Namikawa (Kumi Muzuno) purchases the rights to the device, but in the contract Tetsuo signs it states that he won’t see a dime until the device goes into production. This lack of business smarts is one of only many reasons astronaut Fuji doesn’t want this guy marrying his sister. Of course we will later learn that the Xiliens can be crippled by certain sonic sounds and that the alarm Tetsuo invented functions on just such a wavelength, thus the goofball suitor will turn out to be a hero.

 

I’m betting Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” would have had the same effect.

The nefarious plan of the Xilien's master controller is so over complicated that if you gave it a second thought you’d realize just how dumb it was. After Fuji and Glenn present the Xilien offer to the World Council it’s quickly discovered that the Xiliens already have flying saucers stationed on Earth, hidden under the surface of the lake the Xiliens claim is where Godzilla could be found, and the Controller gives explains that if they didn’t secretly come here early, “Godzilla and Rodan may have had time to do damage to your country.” The dumb humans buy this lame-ass excuse and soon the Xiliens are using gravitational beams to lift a sleeping Godzilla out of the lake and a napping Rodan from inside a mountain. There is no explanation as to why Godzilla is apparently hibernating under this random lake, nor is one given us to how Rodan became buried inside a mountain, they are just yanked from their various slumbers and taken into space.

Note: It took Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra to defeat King Ghidorah in the last film but good ole Mothra doesn’t even get shout out in this film.  Her appearance most likely cut due to budgetary constraints.

We don’t get our first monster fight until about the fifty minute mark which considering the film’s running time is only ninety-four minutes long is a bit disappointing and another telltale sign of the film’s limited budget.  Worse is that when Godzilla and Rodan finally face off against Ghidorah on Planet X the brawl is barely a couple minutes long. Godzilla pops up from behind a rocky outcropping to fire his atomic breath as if he was a cowboy in a shootout, while Rodan flies around being basically useless, and it ends with Godzilla doing the ridiculous victory dance and King Ghidorah just flying away.

 

It’s a fun fight but not exactly nail-biting.

Fuji, Glenn and scientist Dr. Sakurai (Jun Tazaki) are given a tape with the supposed cure for cancer but they return to Earth it turns out the tape does not contain a cure at all instead it’s an ultimatum stating that Earth must surrender and become of colony of Planet X.  They key threat is that if Earth doesn’t surrender they will unleash Ghidorah and newly mind-controlled Godzilla and Rodan to destroy the planet. Have you spotted the idiocy of this plan? The Xiliens have apparently been on Earth for some time, they were aware of the locations of sleeping Godzilla and Rodan, they already had a device to control the minds of monsters, so what was the fucking point of this gaslight con job of offering the cure of cancer in exchange for Godzilla and Rodan? Aside from maybe getting Godzilla and Rodan pissed at the humans for being abandoning then on Planet X this plan makes no bloody sense.

 

“See if we come and save your sorry asses.”

So exactly what was the point of that staged fight on Planet X? They could have simply snatched the two monsters right off the bat, and then along Ghidorah and their fleet of laser toting flying saucers they could have simply demanded Earth’s surrender at the point. Instead this over complicated sting operation just allows our heroes time to discover what’s really going on and to thwart it.

 

Did I mention that Xilien spy Namikawa had fallen in love with Glenn?

Namikawa falling in love with Glen was apparently not part of the Xilien plan so she is killed by her evil compatriots, but not before she is able to slip a note to Glenn explaining how Tetsuo’s device is the key to defeating the invaders. So Glenn and Tetsuo team-up while Fuji and Dr. Sakurai work on their own device which will block the mind control beams that control Godzilla and Rodan. Now if the sight of flying saucers being hit with a sonic weapon, causing them to lose control and crash, sounds rather familiar that’s because this completely rips-off the premise as to how the aliens were defeated in Ray Harryhausen’s Earth vs the Flying Saucers. Though the added bonus of a giant monster fight does offset the theft of this idea and really it’s just another example of Toho Studios continued attempt at giving the human characters relevance in these stories.

 

When really we all came to see stuff like this.

Invasion of Astro-Monster doesn’t have the level of carnage found in the previous entry, mainly due to the film’s greatly reduced budget, and you can even play a drinking where you take a shot every time you spot footage of destruction that was lifted from the films Rodan and Mothra, but director Ishirô Honda still managed to put together another rather entertaining chapter in the Godzilla franchise.  In fact the nature of the franchise becomes very clear as the film ends not with the death of King Ghidorah but instead it has the monster flying off in defeat so that he can return to fight another day, just as he did at the end of Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster. This is in complete counterpoint to the earlier Shōwa period where each film ended with the death of the monster.  This movie ends with a now mind-control freed Godzilla and Rodan having a rather slapstick battle with King Ghidorah until Rodan picks up Godzilla and the two fly straight at the three-headed villain where the group then go crashing over the cliff to the sea below.  Our heroes witness the defeated "Monster Zero" emerge from the water and flee back to I guess Planet X, but there is no sign of either Godzilla or Rodan.  Could this be the end?

 

Ghidorah will return in Destroy All Monsters.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (2017) - Review

Who is Star-Lord and what is a Groot were just a couple of questions that the bulk of the movie going public were asking when James Gunn released the original Guardians of the Galaxy back in 2017, not being based characters with the public awareness of likes of say Spider-Man or Captain America, but now having made over $400 million dollars worldwide one can assume pretty much everyone knows who Star-Lord and is friends are, yet what is interesting here is that instead of making a sequel that is bigger and splashier than original film James Gunn has decided to go deeper into who these guys really are and what makes them tick. Now don’t get me wrong this sequel has action galore, and the screen practically explodes at times, but this entry has a much greater emotional heft to it than its predecessor.

This sequel opens with Peter Quill aka Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) battling an inter-dimensional monster as they have basically become galactic heroes for hire. In this instanced they were hired by a race called the Sovereign, a genetically perfected race that are grown in incubation pods, to protect valuable batteries from becoming this particular monster's lunch, and when they succeed they are paid by the leader of the Sovereign Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) with the handing over of Gamora’s sister Nebula (Karen Gillan) who had herself been captured by the Sovereign while trying to steal those very same batteries. All seems good until the Sovereign discover that Rocket had managed to steal a few of those batteries for himself.

At first it looks like the movie is going to tread familiar ground with our group of heroes running from a bunch of villains with the maguffin du jour in their hot little hands but then the film takes a dramatic left turn when they run into Quill’s father (Kurt Russell), who we learnt from the movie’s opening prologue was an alien who visited Earth to knock up Quill’s mom, and who then brings Quill, Gamora and Drax back to his planet…kind of. I don’t want to get into spoilers here as the relationship between Quill and his intergalactic deadbeat dad is one of the major components of the film and to reveal his origins here would not be fair but the theme of family, genetic or otherwise, is the true crux of this movie.  Not only do we learn who Quill’s father was but we find out more about Yondu (Michael Rooker) and the real reason he never delivered the young Peter Quill as he was originally hired to do.  We discover what makes Rocket tick and why he acts like an asshat most of the time and we also get a particular dark reveal as to why Nebula is the way she is.

The movie of course isn’t all about dark emotional issues and tragic backstories, as fun as that would be, it is at heart still rousing space adventure with countless laugh-out-loud moments; with Baby Groot stealing any scene he appears in and Dave Bautista’s Drax killing it in his moments with the innocent Mantis (Pom Klementieff) who is the antennae alien servant/pet of Quill’s father.

There is a lot going on in the film’s 136 minute running time, with characters splitting off into separate groups to have their own side adventures, and for the most part it all works brilliantly and the only real negative I can say towards the movie is once again Marvel seems to have provided another rather lacklustre villain in the form of the Sovereign. Whenever they show up you can only hope that  its brief so we can get back to the good stuff with Quill and his dad or Gamora and her sister, or especially the side quest with Rocket and Groot as they end up hooking up with Yondu and his mutinous crew.  Thank god the Sovereign aren't the film's main antagonist.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 doesn’t have the fresh out of the box smell of the original film but writer/director James Gunn wisely decides to cut down on the exploring of the Marvel Universe and instead explores the characters we’ve grown to love with a result that makes this film stand above most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe sequels, with the possible exception of Captain America: Winter Soldier, and has me eagerly awaiting Vol 3.

Final Thoughts:
 
• The CGI to de-age Kurt Russell for the 1980 prologue is even better than what they did for Michael Douglas in Ant-Man.
• Dave Bautista is comic gold here and should get a shot to with his own film.
• We finally get to see Rocket Racoon finally rocket around as he did in the comics.
• The movie is littered with a plethora of cameos as well as five credit cookies.
• The soundtrack is just as good as the first film’s
• The Opening battle being played out in the background as Baby Groot Dances was pure genius.

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) – Review

With the amazing success of the rather goofy King Kong vs. Godzilla it’s not surprising that the franchise would continue in that rather campy direction and if people wanted to see giant monsters duking it out then by god that’s what Toho Studios would give them. With this in mind Ishirō Honda followed up King Kong vs. Godzilla with another successful monster fight Mothra vs. Godzilla and then with the age old adage of "Go bigger or go home" he released the mother of all monsters fights the very same year, a movie that would star Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra and pit them against the three-headed outer-space menace of King Ghidorah.

If while watching Godzilla stomp through the cities of Japan, fighting various other giant monsters and military forces, and if you thought to yourself “This movie could do with some international intrigue and spy stuff” than this is the movie for you. A kaiju movie cannot be just ninety odd minutes of guys in monster suits wailing on each other, though my four year old nieces would argue this point as anytime there is a human on screen they are yelling out “Monster fights!” and asking me to fast forward to the good stuff, but not only would that get kind of exhausting Toho Studios certainly couldn’t afford it. So though this movie does contain a roster of Toho’s top monsters much of the screen time deals with a princess, who may or may not be and alien and a prophetess, being pursued by would be assassins.

 

She’s three of a kind.

The movie opens with shooting stars that interrupt a meeting of a group UFO enthusiasts who were waiting around for a message from outer space, they blame no alien responses on the nosey reporter and “unbeliever” Naoko Shindo (Yuriko Hoshi), but it’s the big meteorite that lands up in the mountains that becomes the big concern. Assistant professor Murai (Hiroshi Koizumi) is sent to investigate the asteroid and discovers it has strange gravitational properties. Meanwhile Detective Shindo (Yosuke Natsuki) is assigned by his boss Okita (Akihiko Hirata) to body guard a Princess Selina Salno of Selgina (Akiko Wakabayashi) who is to visit Japan as there is concern that an attempt may be made on her life.  That the plane carrying the princess explodes on its way to Japan seems to indicated that there may something to that concern. Seeing her escape the plane, while still midair, by some of those shooting stars is just the beginning of this craziness. Shortly after this “assassination” a strange and beautiful woman shows up proclaiming she is from Jupiter and she starts issuing prophecies about the world being on the brink of destruction, and despite the fact that she’s not wearing the royal jewels of the princess Detective Shindo is sure that this prophetess is the presumed dead princess. Her first prophecy is of a disaster that is to occur at Mount Aso, the place where Rodan met his demise.

 

Monsters are notoriously hard to kill but even harder to keep dead.

While the mysterious prophetess is running around declaring the sky is falling we get an interlude of a televised variety show called “What are they doing now?” where this week’s guest stars are the Shobijin faireis (Emi and Yumi Ito) from Infant Island, and it’s clear that despite all the destruction caused by Mothra the people of Japan clearly love the creature and her tiny envoys. I guess helping defeat Godzilla earns you lots of good will. Then just when the fairies are about to set sail back home the Prophetess shows up to state that the ship they are about to set sail on is doomed. The captain and passengers laugh off such claim and thus they all die when Godzilla shows up and flash fries them.

 

Do we think he holds a grudge against Mothra for his defeat in the last film?

Meanwhile the nefarious assassins are sent to find out if this prophetess, who looks so much like the princess they were sent to kill, is in fact the Princess Selina.  Then in a coincidence that is usually relegated to French farces it turns out the assassins are staying at the same hotel that Naoko brings the prophetess back for an interview. Lucky for our heroes the princess is saved by the twin fairies, they had taken the prophecy seriously and got off the ship, and are able to thwart this second attempt on the princesses’ life.  Later when Detective Shindo takes the princess/prophetess to a psychiatrist to find out if she’s actually from outer space, or just your garden variety nut job, the assassins make another attempt on her life but it is thwarted when the nearby Rodan and Godzilla’s take out some powerlines during there brawl. The princess was just going to undergo shock treatment while the assassins had snuck into the facility to change the power setting to “murder” but then the power goes out just in the nick of time.

 

Godzilla the literal Deus ex Machina.

Now we’re almost an hour into this ninety minute movie and we haven’t even seen the title monster yet but that is soon rectified when the meteorite Professor Murai was studying explodes and Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster bursts forth. We get the standard scenes of wanton city destruction with the added bonus of the lightning the bursts from the creatures three wobbling heads. We don’t know much about King Ghidorah except that according to the Prophetess centuries ago it destroyed Jupiter and her people were force to flee to Earth and have since bred with the Earthlings over the centuries. Now don’t ask me to explain how this genetic memory is supposed work or what that has to do with the shooting stars that rescued her from the sabotaged plane because the movie doesn’t bother to either. There’s no time for that as the big monster fight is about to unfold.

 

The magnificent King Ghidorah.

With the destruction of Earth being imminent the authorities turn to the twin fairies to ask for their help, yet even though the Shobijin agree to request Mothra’s aid they do not believe she can defeat Ghidorah alone and state that they must get assistance from both Godzilla and Rodan if there is to be any chance of success. This does bring up an interesting question, “What exactly is the relationship between the various kaiju?” It seems that if two giant monsters arrive at the same location they are honor bound to fight, doesn't matter if they have a past grievance or not. When Godzilla wades ashore, after destroying that ocean liner, he soon spots Rodan and the two start fighting despite never having met before. Is it some ingrained animosity these monsters have towards their fellow kaiju? Yet Mothra’s plan is to ask these two giant frat boys to stop their personal bickering and team-up to fight King Ghidorah. Worse is that earlier this year the Mothra twins kicked Godzilla’s butt which is certainly more of a reason for Godzilla to want to fight Mothra rather than some three-headed interloper.

 

Then again can who can stay mad a Mothra?

It’s during this big finale that things start to get really goofy, Godzilla is no longer the terrifying force of nature he once was as he’s now more like Ralph Kramden to Rodan’s Ed Norton and Mothra is the stand in for Alice.

 

“One of these days Mothra, bang zoom right to moon!”

The entire exchange between Mothra, Godzilla and Rodan does feel more like a comedy bit you’d expect to see on an episode of The Honeymooners or maybe the Three Stooges, certainly not in a titanic struggle between legendary behemoths. Then to make things extra silly we have the two fairies showing up to translate for the monsters so that the humans can know what’s going, and it’s as ridiculous as it sounds. Here is a rough break down of the monster debate…

• Godzilla and Rodan are found volleying rocks back and forth at each other as if participating in some form of mad tennis.
• Mothra shows up and sprays Godzilla with her cocooning spray.
• Rodan laughs at the hilarity of this.
• Mothra then sprays Rodan.
• Godzilla drops to his butt for a good laugh at that.
• Mothra says, “Let’s stop fighting each other and unite against King Ghidorah.”
• Godzilla and Rodan say it’s none of their business. They don’t care.
• Godzilla says he has no reason to help humans. Humans always make trouble.
• Rodan says he agrees with that.
• Mothra says this fighting is of now use. But Godzilla and Rodan both want an apology.
• Mothra tells them the Earth doesn’t belong to just humans. It’s theirs too, so they should defend it.
• Godzilla and Rodan remain unconvinced so Mothra scurries off to fight Ghidorah alone.

The idea of a group of monsters having a philosophical debate while a couple of tine fairies provide colour commentary, as if they were translators from the Monster Island version of the United Nations, is bizarre beyond words and also kind of brilliant. Some fans decry this more comic take on Godzilla and blame it for the eventually shut down of the series in the mid-70s, but as the franchise has never been prone to having any form of consistent continuity in tone or story I consider this take on Godzilla to be as valid as any other.

These later Shōwa period entries may be goofy but their also a lot of fun, when Godzilla sees Mothra getting beaten on by King Ghidorah he rushes to the little guys aid as if to say, “Nobody picks on my little buddy.” Rodan apparently feeling left out joins in and even allows Mothra to ride on his back, giving the little guy the ability to fire his spray from the air. The fight is over-the-top in its insanity with Mothra holding on to Ghidorah’s tails while the three-headed monster zaps Godzilla in the butt with his lightning, and Rodan buffeting the space monster with a storm of rocks.  Ghidorah isn’t so much defeated as more likely he was so just embarrassed that he up and leaves.

 

“Don’t let the door hit you where Godzilla split you.”

Now director Ishirō Honda was not a particular fan of the comic turn the series took but like any working professional he did the best he could with the material on hand, working the human stories into the monster fighting while also making the interesting has always been tricky business, and the introduction of the spy element and alien themes certainly helped. In the case of Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster the amnesiac princess from Jupiter being hunted by assassins does tangentially get the humans involved beyond being mere witnesses, and though it is resolved rather abruptly (the final assassin is killed by a landslide caused by the monster fight and the princess being wounded brings back her memory) it’s still satisfying. So even though Detective Shindo manages to save the princess it’s clear that the heroes of the day are Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra.

 

But can they remain friends long enough to defeat the Astro Monster in their next film?

The Island at the Top of the World (1974) – Review

Walt Disney Studios was chiefly known for their animated projects but after their adaptation of Treasure Island in 1959 they also became quite well known for their live action family adventure films. In 1974 the studio released a family-orientated roadshow package containing the animated featurette Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too along with the feature film The Island at the Top of the World.

The movie is based on the 1961 novel The Lost Ones by Ian Cameron which was a contemporary story that followed the adventures of a father looking for his son who was lost in the arctic, the Disney adaptation on the other hand takes place in the year 1907 and instead of the father using a helicopter, as he did in the book, the change of time period lent the studio to go with a more cinematic vehicle in the form of a marvelous airship.

 

The Hyperion, named after the original address of Disney Studios.

The movie opens with Sir Anthony Ross (Donald Sinden) recruiting Scandinavian-American archaeologist Professor John Ivarsson (David Hartman) for an expedition to find his son who had gone missing while searching for the mythical graveyard of whales. To aid them on their search is French inventor/aeronaut Captain Brieux (Jacques Marin), Sir Anthony having purchased the Captain’s dirigible and services without letting him know what their mission would exactly entail, and this is a kind of running theme with deal ole Sir Anthony. He practically cons Ivarsson into joining the expedition, even having his ship sail with him on board before Ivarsson had even agreed to join the excursion, and later when they make a stop at an Eskimo he practically shanghais Oomiak (Mako) an Inuit man who had went off with Sir Anthony’s son but sadly had returned alone.

 

Standard entitled British asshat.

Sir Anthony isn’t the real villain of the peace, he’s more a man just overly focused on finding his son and damn the lives of those needed to achieve that goal, but he does do some idiotic things like forcing the dirigibles engines to full speed when they hadn’t been thoroughly worked in which causes a propeller to break and leads to Captain Brieux performing a daring midair replacement job. Later when they arrive at the mysterious cloud shrouded island he ends up pushing the Captain to continue on despite the dangers of the ship being smashed against the island cliffs.

 

Which is of course exactly what happens.

After crashing into the cliffs Sir Anthony, Ivarsson and Oomiak are tossed out of the dirigible while Captain Brieux and the damaged Hyperion floats up into the storm where they both disappear into the clouds. The three survivors trudge through the snow until they eventually come across a lush green valley that seems to be kept in a permanent summer by the islands volcanic activity and hot springs.

 

The movie has the occasionally dodgy optical effect but the matte paintings by Peter Ellenshaw are great.

The valley is occupied by a lost civilization of Vikings, cut off from the rest of the world for centuries, and our heroes are quickly captured by a group of angry locals. Turns out Sir Anthony’s son Donald (David Gwillim) did make it to this lost paradise but with the appearance of these new “barbarians” the Vikings fear that Donald is a spy and that Sir Anthony and company are the forefront of an invasion. No matter how hard our heroes try and explain their true intentions they are not believed because of the dark omen seen flying through the sky (obviously the crippled dirigible), and they are sentenced to death by a religious fanatic named Godi (Gunnar Öhlund).

 

In the halls of Astragard.

Lucky for our heroes young Donald managed to get a beautiful Viking girl named Freyja (Agneta Eckemyr) to fall in love with him and she manages to rescue them from a Viking funeral pyre. The group flee up the mountains and across the volcanic craters of Astragard to the Bay of Whales, Freyja is at first against this idea because that place is sacred and taboo but this just means her fellow Viking warriors are less likely to follow them there. It’s not a fun trip as they get caught up in a volcanic eruption where Sir Anthony comes close to being engulfed by a river of lava.

 

A trip through Dante’s Inferno.

With the Viking warriors hot on their heels the group eventually do make it to the Bay of Whales, after climbing into a dormant volcanic crater and entering through a series of catacombs, and then they are gobsmacked by the sight to hundreds of whale carcasses of every imaginable species. Freyja tells them that her people will not follow them down here because legends tell of sea monsters that guard the entrance to the bay. This seems to be the case as the Vikings just set up camp at the rim of the valley to watch our heroes die. Turns out that the sea monster isn’t quite the Kraken of Norse legend but instead a pod of excessively violent killer whales who try to turn our group into lunch.

 

Shouldn’t it be hunting Richard Harris?

Just when the end seems very well-nigh a rifle shot echoes across the valley and the killer whales are driven off with some crack shooting by Captain Brieux. Seems the Hyperion had crashed in this very bay and with a little work of lightening the load, cutting loose the Hyperion’s engines and gondola, our intrepid heroes are once again in the air. Unfortunately the wind shifts and the Hyperion drifts back towards Astragard and the still encamped Vikings. The sight of the massive airship terrifies the Vikings, who all flee in panic, all except one.

 

I’m not a member of a lost Viking civilization and that would probably terrify me.

The religious nut Godi stands his ground and fires a flaming arrow at the Hyperion, because that seems like a reasonable course of action. The ship quickly catches fire but they are near enough to the ground that everyone is able to escape the burning dirigible. Not so lucky is the idiot Godi who soon finds himself under the plummeting burning wreckage.

 

“Oh, the humanity.”

The film than jumps to our group back in the halls of Astragard where The Lawspeaker (Rolf Søder) informs our group that the gods were indeed angry but not at them but at Godi for leading their people down the path of hatred and violence. He tells our heroes that they are free to go as long as Donald remains as a hostage; this infuriates Sir Anthony but then Ivarsson steps in and volunteers to stay because Astragard is an archeologists dream. Sir Anthony, Donald, Freyja, Captain Brieux and Oomiak, are allowed to depart in peace, promising not to tell the Outside World about Astragard.

 

Or about the millions of dollars’ worth of whale bones and ambergris.

The Island at the Top of the World didn’t make much of a splash at the box office, nixing the plans the studio had for a sequel, but it is a fun adventure story that hearkens back to the pulp adventure tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In fact there is a lot in this movie that owes itself to the legacy of Burroughs; the hidden paradise surrounded by arctic ice is right out of The Land that Time Forgot, and the mythical whale’s graveyard is an aquatic echo of the elephant graveyard that appeared in numerous Tarzan movies. Tarzan himself took an airship on an adventure to a lost world in Tarzan at the Earth’s Core and there was even an episode of the Filmation Tarzan series where the Ape Man encountered a lost outpost of Vikings. The Island at the Top of the World may not be up with there with such Disney classics as Treasure Island and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea but it’s still good wholesome family fun that new generations can find and discover.

Note: Aside from the change in era Disney also altered the ending a tad, in the movie Freyja survives whereas in the book she tragically dies while sacrificing herself to save Donald and Sir Anthony.  This kind of change isn't shocking as Disney Studios have never been all that keen on depressing endings for their family films.

Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) – Review

With the titanic battle of King Kong vs. Godzilla being such success that Toho would then pit Godzilla against one of their own stars seemed only natural, so the benevolent giant moth known as Mothra was tapped to battle the King of the Monsters. Mothra vs. Godzilla also is the last of the Shōwa period Godzilla films where Godzilla would be the “villain” as later films in the series he would move to a more “anti-hero” status, often even teaming up with Mothra against more dangerous foes. Back at the helm for this outing was Ishirô Honda, the director of the original Gojira, in what is easily one of the best of the early Toho monster smackdowns.

The movie opens with a typhoon washing a giant egg ashore which really excites the locals but not in a "Run for your lives!" kind of excitement.  This I find rather puzzling as one would think a giant anything would warrant more suspicion than adulation.  The entrepreneur behind Happy Enterprises, Kumayama (Yoshifumi Tajima), offers the local fishermen 1,224,560 Yen so that he can use the egg as a tourist attraction and surprisingly is allowed to do just that. One of the few believable moments in King Kong vs. Godzilla was that when the pharmaceutical company tried to bring Kong to the mainland, to be used as some idiotic promotion, but the Japanese government stepped in and used a naval blockade to prevent this giant monster from being brought ashore. This to me seems a rather sensible attitude when your country has been rampaged on several occasions by various giant monsters, but in Mothra vs. Godzilla the government and the laws seem unable to prevent such an occurrence from happening.

 

What could possibly go wrong?

It’s this change in attitude that makes the crux of the conflict in the film and works as an indictment of big business and corporate interests that don’t necessarily gel with the best interests of the public welfare. Leading the charge against these financial villains is cynical news reporter Ichiro Sakai (Akira Takarada) and rookie photographer Junko Nakanishi (Yuriko Hoshi) who we first meet as they investigate the wreckage caused by the typhoon, it's also where Nakanishi discovers a bluish-gray object in the debris that later is discovered to be radioactive.

 

He didn’t just pick up that thing, did he?

Along with Professor Miura (Hiroshi Koizumi) they want to find out just where that egg came from, a question that no one else seems to be asking, but they are stymied by Kumayama’s shady business partner Jiro Torahata (Kenji Sahara) and their plans to build a multi-billion yen amusement park around the giant egg. Now our three heroes aren’t the only ones with concerns regarding the mysterious egg as Kumayama and Torahata are confronted in their hotel room by two tiny twin women (Emi Itô and Yumi Itô) who come from Infant Island, the tropical island home of Mothra. These six inch women are known as Shobijin and are the priestess of Infant Island and Mothra and they beseech the two businessmen to return the egg. It’s no surprise that when these two asshats see the girls dollars signs immediately appear before their eyes and they try to capture the fairies in the hopes of making them an added attraction for the park.

 

“Give us back our egg!”

The twin fairies escape and meet with Sakai, Nakanishi and Professor Miura in some nearby woods and while there they explain that if the egg is not returned to Infant Island the it will hatch and the larva “will cause great trouble” in its search for food on its way home. The larva will have no malevolent designs towards mankind but a hungry giant child can be very dangerous. Our trio is startled see that Mothra is just hanging around the woods, it being the mode of transportation for the fairies, and the twins leave after one further request that the egg be returned. Sakai does his best to use his news articles to sway public opinion but the law favors the Kumayama and Torahata and the “Grand Opening” soon approaches.  But before Kumayama can start counting ticket sales something develops concerning the pieces of weird debris that Nakanishi found at the beach. Professor Miura reveals that this strange debris is radioactive and when they return to the beach where Nakanishi found it the ground soon begins to shake and a certain atomic fire breathing monster pops out of the ground.

 

“Hey guys, surprise!”

And how exactly did Godzilla end up under this beach? The movie never makes this clear but the area was being pumped clear of water for some local manufacturing facility, so it’s possible that this part of the beach was underwater when King Kong and Godzilla fell into the sea at the end of King Kong vs. Godzilla, with the King of the Monsters being buried in the silt and then when the shore got expanded his watery grave was uncovered. Of course he also could have been blown in with the typhoon and just buried under mud but I like my theory better. Well regardless as to how Godzilla pulled off this startling return the citizens of Japan now have to deal with some more atomic fueled rampaging. The government sends the military into action as they try to develop plans to stop Godzilla, meanwhile Sakai, Nakanishi and Professor Miura take a flight to Infant Island to ask for Mothra’s aid in stopping Godzilla.

 

Budget cuts really hurt Infant Island.

Nuclear fallout has caused much devastation on Infant Island, strangely enough the natives don’t seem to be suffering from any signs of radiation sickness which is kind of a nice clue that they aren’t exactly human, and Sakai, Nakanishi and Professor Miura do not get much of a warm welcome from these residents. The chieftain informs our heroes that, “We on this island do not trust humans! Our trust almost cost us all of our homes.” He demands the return of Mothra’s egg and when even the fairies basically tell our hereos to "Get bent" though a bit more politely than that, but it looks like mankind is going to have to fight Godzilla on their own.  Then Nakanishi explains that if Mothra doesn’t help stop Godzilla many innocent people will die right along with the bad ones that have earned the islanders distrust, and he even notes that “Evil people have the right to live.” Strangely enough this sways Mothra and she agrees to help, but the fairies warn our heroes that Mothra is at the end of her life cycle and she is due to die very soon.

 

But not before laying a heavy smackdown on Godzilla.

Just as Godzilla gets a chance to make an omelet out of that giant egg Mothra shows up and uses its wings to create gale force winds that send Godzilla tumbling away from the egg.  She then grabs the King of the Monsters and proceeds to drag him across the countryside as if he was an errant puppy. Things look good for a while, with Mothra seeming to be winning as she doses Godzilla with poisonous dust, but then a lucky atomic breath attack hits Mothra in the wing and she goes down. The poor creature makes its way back to egg were she finally expires.

 

Is this the end of Mothra?

It’s after this shocking defeat that we get a very rare moment in the history of the franchise; the military actually come up with a decent plan on taking out Godzilla. Having established in his battle with King Kong that Godzilla is weakened by lightning the military set up massive towers rigged with “Lightning Generators” and with tank brigades and napalm strikes provide by the air force they manage to drive Godzilla towards the towers. Godzilla is able to take out one of the towers but then cargo helicopters drop huge steel nets over the him that help conduct the “lightning” even better.

 

What a shocking development.

Unfortunately the military commander, sensing victory is finally at hand, orders more power to the towers even though he is warned that the system is already at maximum output. This of course results in the system overheating and failing and thus Godzilla is once again free to rampage across Japan. I have to admit I found the whole “lightning generator” thing a bit iffy, as I do the whole concept of Godzilla having a weakness towards electricity as in Gojira he didn’t seem to have any problem tearing through electrical barriers the military instituted in that movie. Making the military seem even slightly useful is probably one of the biggest challenges writers of these movies have.

 

“Give it your best shot, I can take it.”

Do you remember the humans in this story? Our intrepid trio or the two greedy businessmen who wanted to exploit Mothra’s egg? Well Kumayama and Torahata story line ended abruptly when Kumayama demanded the money he was owed, having fronted all the expenses for the amusement park while Torahata did basically nothing, the two end up dead when Kumayama gets shot in the back by Torahata who in turn is killed when the hotel collapses around him during Godzilla’s rampage. It’s almost your standard EC comics’ comeuppance deaths, and though these characters were more antagonists than true villains they did add a nice bit of vitality to the story with both actors doing tremendous work even if they don’t survive to the third act. As for our “heroes” they are basically relegated to sidelines once Mothra and the army battle with Godzilla.  The screenwriters throw in a side adventure where they have to get to a nearby island to save a group of school children who are in the path of Godzilla’s rampage but it's nothing we care about.  What gets our blood pumping is the hatching of the egg and the arrival of not one but two larvae.

 

“Congratulations Mothra, it's twins!”

Ishirô Honda was working with a smaller budget this time out and so the citywide destruction scenes don’t really manifests themselves as they did in Gojira, in Mothra vs. Godzilla much of the monster combat takes place in pretty generic countryside locations not densely populated cityscapes. We do get some moments of Godzilla wrecking buildings but its handled more as an incidental and accidental at times, this isn’t the rage fueled allegory for the nuclear holocaust we've seen in the past as this Godzilla is more of a force of nature than a figure of revenge. The film’s final fight between the Mothra twins and Godzilla isn’t the typical free-for-all that would be seen in later entries but instead has the two larvae taking out the big guy by cocooning him with their silk spray.

 

“Hey guys knock that off, this isn’t funny!”

One can’t expect the same kind of slugfest from Mothra as we’d later get with Mechagodizlla or King Ghidorah but the fight between Godzilla and the larvae is still pretty gripping and beautifully executed by the suit actors and holds up pretty well. The heroic trio of Sakai, Nakanishi and Professor Miura is an almost complete lift from the trio found in 1961's Mothra, but I guess if it's not broke don't fix it and it’s no surprise that next to Godzilla the wonderful Mothra is the most popular of the Kaiju.

Note: The North America release of this film made surprisingly few changes from the original Japanese cut, certainly nowhere near as many changes as Gojira or Godzilla Raids received, but it was released as Godzilla vs. The Thing which kind of implied he'd either be fighting James Arness or a member of The Addams Family.

The Fate of the Furious (2017) – Review

If you’ve seen the last few movies in this franchise you may have noticed it’s veered slightly away from bad boys street racing with undercover cops who occasionally take on villainous drug dealers, it’s now more in the vein of films like Captain America: Civil War where heroes take on super villains in over-the-top action set-pieces, and like our current line of superhero movies the obvious death toll occurring on screen is kept rather sanitized and downplayed. Seriously, the amount of innocent lives lost that can be laid at Dominic Toretto’s feet in this film would land him about twenty life sentences if this was the real world.

Of course this isn’t the real world it’s the “Fast and the Furious World” where reality is for chumps.

The movie opens with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) on their honeymoon in Havana, in which Dom and a local tough guy race for pinks in what could be considered a nod to where the series started, but there is trouble in paradise as villainous cyberterrorist Cypher (Charlize Theron) has arrived to recruit Dom for her nefarious world dominating scheme. Toretto would like to tell her where she can stuff her offer but Cypher has something in her clutches that is very near and dear to his heart. You would think by now that villains would realize that if you need the talents of the hero, because the hero is so badass only they could pull it off, at some point those particular talents are going to turn around and bite you in the ass.

 

Betrayal is just a heartbeat away.

Meanwhile Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) has his afternoon soccer game with his daughter’s team interrupted and he and the team are assembled and race off to Berlin to retrieve an EMP device from a military outpost. It’s while making their daring escape that Toretto reveals he’s not playing for their team anymore and Hobbs ends up in a maximum security prison, one that also happens to be holding the Deckard (Jason Statham) who was the villain in Furious 7, and Dominic disappears with the EMP device.

 

Will these former enemies join forces to stop the rogue Toretto?

The Fate of the Furious is a ludicrous movie and if you embrace the insanity you will have an amazing time. With the right mindset you will giggle along with our heroes as they race through the streets of New York City while Cypher remote controls a thousand autonomous cars to steal the nuclear football from a visiting Russian Minister of Defense, you will laugh as cars make insane jumps, flip and crash all while still remaining fully functional, you will snicker at every tough guy line that Diesel, Statham, and Dwayne Johnson utter at each other, and you will cheer as our heroes out race a nuclear submarine, avoid massive explosions and fireballs, dodge bullets and even evade a heat-seeking missile as if this was simply a normal Tuesday for them.

 

I’d love to see how these guys spend their weekends.

Basically what I’m saying here is that as action-comedies go you will not be disappointed with this installment, but if you are the kind of person who is bothered by plot holes big enough to swallow said nuclear submarine than you may want to avoid this entry in the genre. Director F. Gary Gray does solid work here in keeping the action and banter coming at you so fast and furious that you won’t ask questions like, “If Cypher obtains the codes for Russia’s nuclear arsenal wouldn’t the Russian government immediately change those codes?” This film doesn’t even bother to give Cypher any kind of motivation or plan that makes a lick of sense, at one point she tells Toretto that she wants to, “Hold the world’s governments accountable.” Accountable for what exactly? Does this mean if America invades Syria she will nuke Manhattan, or if Russia rigs an election she will wipe out Moscow? Nothing is made clear pertaining to her long-term goals so I’m not sure if she was being set-up to be some crazed altruistic supervillain but the film spends so little time with her that we never find out.

 

As former villains tend to pop-up in sequels I’m betting she will return.

It is great to see the gang back in action, and it's truly sad that Paul Walker is no longer with us, and as an action blockbusters go there is worst ways to start your summer off. This is a fun film with fantastic stunts, lots of good laughs, beautiful women, cool cars, and then of course there’s Kurt Russell who is always a treat no matter how small the role.

Now that all said there was one element that bothered me greatly, setting aside the ridiculous plot and the indestructible nature of our heroes, the one element in the film that made no sense whatsoever was everyone using what looked to be bloody CB radios during those insane car chases. Have none of these idiots heard of hands-free phones? If you are crashing through city streets or barrelling across frozen wastelands you’d think you’d want both hands on the wheel.

 

That's standard driver safety, people!