Gamera vs. Viras

Viras, a giant alien squid, takes his ping pong ball spaceship to conquer Earth. Who could come but Gamera, the big turtle and friend to all children, to save Earth. In order to defeat Gamera, the aliens scan into his past (about a half hour of stock footage that we have to sit though) and find out that he is friend to children. So they hold two boy scouts for ransom and put a transmitter in his brain. Now Gamera does what they want now and destroys Tokyo, but the boys have tricks up their sleeves. This is silly but a lot of fun to watch.

The veering of the Gamera series towards the younger generation began with the fourth film, "Gamera vs. Viras" released a speedy three years after the original hit Japanese theaters in 1965. Even though the previous movie, the gleefully entertaining "Gamera vs. Gyaos" was also geared mostly toward children, it still had an element of terror and dread in it. That is gone here and "Gamera vs. Viras" is an unsuccessfully endeavor. However, that it is hardly due to the fact that it is being directed at little children and those who are still able to find the child deep within themselves (a la moi). The problem with this picture is, despite its wonderful beginning and wonderful ending, most of the middle is just shameless, lazy jigsaw-construction of its predecessors. In other words, it's mostly just stock footage reels.

The opening is very promising. A spaceship venturing for a conquest of Earth is interrupted by Gamera, now fully evolved into the friend of all children. Before the vessel is destroyed, it sends a signal back to its home world and a second one is dispatched. Upon the new one's arrival, the aliens use their technology to determine Gamera's weaknesses and take two boy scouts (Toru Takatsuka & Carl Craig) hostage. Now implicating a mind-control device, they use Gamera to destroy civilization. The thin plot becomes thinner before it ultimately leads up to the titular conflict between the giant terrapin and a slimy extra-terrestrial cephalopod.

The movie is so wonderful at first. Both Gamera and the two boys are very entertaining. The latter are portrayed as witty, audacious, and thoughtful individuals...despite the occasional prank or two. And a scene involving them inside of a submersible racing Gamera underwater brought a smile to my face. But the movie starts crippling itself at the moment where the aliens start searching Gamera's past. It's stock footage from the previous movies, each reel lasting roughly five minutes. The aliens quote that their process takes fifteen minutes and it literally does. There's hardly any narration or trimming of the stock footage; it's just reused. (Frighteningly enough, for the U.S. version, the stock footage reel was increased to a mind-numbing twenty-five minutes!) When this ends, there is some relief, but then it becomes just more reused footage from the previous movies. Sequence upon sequence. And most jarring of all is when they decide to once again show Gamera attacking Tokyo as he did in the original film "Gamera the Giant Monster." Now if you will recall, that movie was black-and-white. This one is in color. Eyes squinting yet? Colorization was not around at the time this picture was made and yes, they still integrate colorless footage into a color movie! Just a slight bluish tint, that's all. And sadly, this drags on and on seemingly without end and wore me out. All of a sudden, even the whim and charm of Mr. Takatsuka and Mr. Craig, both of whom are very good in the film, seems unimportant.

Now the movie does pick up a little when the final battle does arrive. And it's satiatingly lengthy, but even with that, by the time it was all over, "Gamera vs. Viras" had exhausted me and left me feeling a thirst for a lot more. The stock footage it so abundant that if there had been more, it could have been a "Best of Gamera" show instead of a continuation to the series. And as far as I am concerned, a low budget should not be an excuse for ham-handed filmmaking. There are some good things here, including a leading performance by that wonderful actor Kojiro Hongo (who was in the previous two Gamera movies and would later play a small part in Shusuke Kaneko's marvelous "Gamera: Guardian of the Universe" almost thirty years later) but there are also a lot of bad things here too.

Viras (a sort of space squid) and a shipful of aliens who dress like surgeons attempt to take over the Earth, two Boy Scouts at a time. Along comes Gamera... Suddenly, the movie grinds to a halt: we're treated to ELEVEN MINUTES of miscellaneous footage from the first three Gamera movies. Once the movie gets going again, we find Viras has implanted a mind-control device in Gamera's neck. He sends our hero turtle off to wreak havoc. This time we get to see even MORE footage from the previous movies: the dam attack scene from "Gamera vs. Barugon" and -- here's the kicker -- black and white footage from the original "Gamera", spliced in with no concern for continuity. The rest of the movie features some astonishingly gruesome images, including disembodied floating arms and Gamera getting impaled on Viras' pointy head. Basically, it's a cheap, cheap thrill for eleven-year-olds and immature adults like me.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Noriaki Yuasa; Produced by Hidemasa Nagata, for Daiei Studios; Released in America as "Destroy All Planets" by American-International Pictures. Screenplay by Niisan Takahashi; Photography by Akira Kitazaki; Edited by Shoji Sekiguchi; Music by Kenjiro Hirose. Starring: Kojiro Hongo, Carl Craig, Toru Takatsuka, Michiko Yaegaki, Peter Williams and Mary Morris.

Japanese monster film for kiddies, in the tradition of "Attack of the Monsters". The only good moments are in the use of first-person camera giving the aliens' point-of-view, a technique which is quickly discarded. A new low in absurd plots: title is false as aliens merely seek planetary takeover. They temporarily take control over Gamera (He's back!) and kidnap a couple of Japanese boy scouts. Before saving the day with the kids' help, Gamera unwittingly destroys Tokyo, and in the most unbelievable plot device in many years, the UN decides to surrender the Earth to the aliens rather than risk the lives of the two scouts!

No one goes into the old Gamera movies expecting brilliance. In fact, most watch them fairly openly to delve into the schlock, whether as a guilty pleasure or to enjoy mocking it. I am somewhere in the middle of these two. I have a massive high tolerance for "badness", especially when it is done in the spirit of earnest fun, but there was a couple of times where I just wanted to shut this one off.

The first reason was the flashbacks to which many viewers allude. Not only is there a roughly fifteen minute scene composed of much too large chunks of "fight" scenes from earlier movies, but there are at least two "major" scenes that are taken from the first and second movie and then played off as freshly happening. It is so poorly done, that the scenes from the first one are left in black and white, despite the rest of this movie being in color! The second reason was the utter illogic of this one, in places. A genius kid is one thing, if almost always annoying at times, but this one went above and beyond. Not only is the kid allowed to tamper with various things with almost no repercussion, but him and his friend are given far too much freedom in the middle half of the movie. It is almost like this is a kid's happy dream, as opposed to an abduction by a vindictive life force.

And the climatic decision...egads! All in all, I stuck with it, and finally just started laughing out loud at it machinations. The final scene has some really good moments, as well, including some really well staged smashes and jabs. I give it a solid five stars, I enjoyed it once my brain switched over into its mode of handling things.