Cinema-Maniac: Gamera vs. Barugon (1966) Review

So the first Gamera movie wasn’t exactly a huge hit for me, but it succeeded in making me like the monster. Unfortunately removing Gamera for most of the movie is not exactly enjoyable in the sequel.

A giant monster that emits a destructive ray from its back attacks Japan and takes on Gamera. That what’s the plot synopsis said on the box, what a lie. For most of the movie Gamera is missing and Berugon is actually the main focus of the movie. It’s a shame to, it opens up with Gamera destroying a dam which is the movie best moment and than goes to boring human characters. The story is really uninteresting and I laughed at some of the dialogue. Like in one scene, the native people warn our boring main human characters not to go to Rainbow Valley, my first guess was that evil Care Bears lived there. I was sadly wrong and what were left is an uninteresting plot with boring human characters that take up a good portion of the movie that should have belonged to Gamera.

As for Gamera, I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see more of the monster since the movie starts by showing him destroying a dam that got me pumped up. Sadly he’s missing for most of the movie, Berugon on the other hand is the weirdest thing i’ve ever seen in a monster movie. Berugon powers are pretty lame too, he shoots a freeze ray from his tongue and has the ability to shoots a deadly rainbow. So after being amazed by the fact that Berugon can shoot a deadly destructive rainbow, I was disappointed in the finale. It was to short and it wasn’t worth watching the boring human characters for most of the movie.

So a Gamera movie doesn’t that hardly shows Gamera doesn’t work, that what I wanted to see. What I didn’t want to see was Berugon for most of it and the boring human characters. To bad the film only good moments are when Gamera shows up, to bad there’s hardly any of that.

1/10

Cinema-Maniac: Daikaijû Gamera (The Giant Monster Gamera) (1965) Review

When it comes to monster movies you just can’t do any better than King Kong and Godzilla. What makes the first entry in the Gamera series a failure is that it borrows from Godzilla and anything original in the movie is not interesting and lacks entertainment.

From out of the arctic comes a gigantic flying, fire-breathing turtle that sets its sights on destroying Tokyo. Now the main thing that bothered me besides the dubbing, especially for Kevin (one of the main character), was that is had Americans. Americans in a Japanese monsters movie? I’m not trying to be racist, but it just that our involvement isn’t really required in this movie, I mean these are the same people that killed Godzilla. As the movie progress you’ll questioned that you’ve seen it before, you have. The movie best moments are copied from Godzilla. One thing that bothers me is that the characters that see Gamera just go on TV with a ancient rock and say Gamera is real, and people believe them. The reason it’s a problem is that in Godzilla the people got evidence to prove Godzilla was real, right here the character just say they saw it and are believed.

Now time to talk about the ridiculous Turtle monster himself, Gamera. I’m not going to complain how the costume obviously looks fakes, but I will say it doesn’t looks as good as Godzilla. For some reason this Turtle monster can breath fire, eat fire, and can fly with a rocket power shell. I don’t get it, just like how in one scene it almost looks like he’s dancing a little. Gamera only good moment is when he gets to destroy Tokyo, unfortunately the human characters have to kill that fun whenever they interrupt. Gamera as a monster just doesn’t look menacing, even the citizens in one scene laugh at the idea of running away from a giant Turtle

Gamera just doesn’t have any good original ideas and the only good moments from the movie are ripped-off from Godzilla. Gamera isn’t the worst movie monster movie i’ve seen in a movie, so I give it some points for actually trying to compete with Godzilla and making me laugh unintentionally. It might fails making a good first impression, but it succeeded in making me like the monster Gamera, whenever humans weren’t involve much that is.

3/10