Attack of the Super Monsters

I'm not here to say this movie is good. When inflicting it on my friends, I have found they often experience physical pain. And while this is not the worst of all Japanese giant monster sojourns (Redman, I'm looking at you), it generally isn't worth it even for a kaiju enthusiast.

BUT...there is something to be told about this movie that people need to know when they go in to see this. When giant monster movies were all the rage in Japan in the mid-60s to mid-70s, dozens of superheroes sprung up to combat this rubbery menace. Some, like Ultraman or Spectreman, had staying power and would later prove to be cultural icons. Others, like Silver Kamen and Fireman, would fade into obscurity.

Enter Tsuburaya Productions. Eiji Tsuburaya's company, the owners of Ultraman and the special effects producers behind Godzilla, decided to continue with the trend that had netted them so much money and also jump on the embiggening anime bandwagon. Hence the new TV series Izenborg. It combined live action giant monsters, miniatures, and fairly primitive anime.

Enter Quality Video. They cut four of these episodes together into one movie. That's why it is "episodic" and "formulaic."

That doesn't explain why Jim hits his sister (which drew laughter), or the line "I'll get you, you ratty rat rat!"

Hi.. This film is only the first 4 episodes of a very popular TV kids show that aired in my country during the 80s. The show was very popular and is loved by every one in my country to date (Saudi Arabia), it was a long series of 20 something episodes. I can see why most reviewers hated this film, because its only the first 4 episodes and these episodes are truly not that good, the show however gets a lot better as it moves on, and the Arabic dubbing was quit appropriate ( maybe the English dubbing wasn't good which added to the lameness of this film ). The show changes in the middle of the series, and a new development in the plot occur where the two heroic siblings change into a giant robot the helps killing the monsters just like ultra man, that part is missing in this earlier part of series in this film.

Of course the show has its weaknesses, it was made in 1977, so the direction isn't that good, and sometimes you can tell the fake dinosaurs and the plot of the episodes gets a little repetitive. However, this show will remain a good and enjoyable show that i enjoyed as a kid and still enjoy to watch today with my own kids.

Moe (med7799@yahoo.com)

Imagine an anime where you get live action models and such being destroyed by dinosaurs! Cool, eh? Well this one had its moments, but they kind of failed on the anime portion of this thing. This is one of those films that is actual episodes from a television show pieced together to make a film featuring monsters attacking every episode like a lot of those Japanese shows in the 70's like Ultraman, only here we get anime heroes who ride what looks like a giant bus into action which is also live action. The whole thing is messed up to the extreme!

The story, some Tyrannosaurus is introduced telling all these weird monsters to destroy, but this part seems to go unexplained and may have just been the initial introduction to the television show. Seems like if these three monsters and the main one went on a super attack they could have easily been victorious, but instead they generally like to attack one at a time and incorporate other, smaller animals to do their dirty work like dogs, bats and rats in that order. I wonder if in future episodes if they continued to get smaller animals to assist. Well fear not as Gemini force is going to help as their team consists of a brother sister combo and two idiots who fly the back half of the bus. For reasons unknown to me, the sister and brother combine to form one being and this for some reason makes their ship stronger. Why they need this odd and disturbing transformation is beyond me as you could just make a more powerful weapon, but hey, Gemini Force!

The monsters attacking is pretty out there, but cool in a way as we have yelling dinosaurs. The first scene had one jumping out of the ground and it reminded me of Godzilla the way it did that. Too bad the anime portion is so weak and poorly animated and I would have much rather they become a giant robot to fight the beasts rather than just a plane with a drill and buzz saws. I also got a bit confused as there are two of the super monsters that looked just like the leader and i was like, "What, they killed him already?"

So this thing is wild and definitely worth a look see. I mean, you have dinosaurs wrecking havoc and brother and sister arguing over the sister's refusal to ask for a refund when her blouse got chewed up by rights. We have dogs overrunning the city and then we watch as the two idiot members bulldoze through the dogs! This thing is just crazy and an insane mixture of various formats to make it even more odd. I will warn you, you will get tired of watching them explain the incredible transformation the brother and sister undergo...

I used to rent this movie (without knowing the title, only remembering a picture of a dinosaur on the cover) from my local video store quite a bit when I was four to five years-old. When it was no longer available, I was pretty bummed out. It was a great film for kids back then, as I've found it intriguing with all the dinosaurs coming to life and attacking cities (under the command of a Tyrannosaurus king) and them doing battle with the superheroes. It was a clever special-effect touch, blending live-action with animation, which I thought worked fine in the film. There were plenty of action and heroism and the pacing was quick and to-the-point; I didn't find the movie boring at all.

My mom introduced me to the Godzilla movies after this video was unavailable and it resulted me in becoming one of the biggest fans of Godzilla and the Toho canon. After about 30 years later, through IMDb, I've finally found the title of this movie and realized, ironically, it was created by the production company founded by Godzilla special effects man Eiji Tsuburaya.

I've also found the entire stream of the movie on YouTube and watched it again after all these years. Although the campiness of the monster suits and city models and the simplicity of the plot were more evident, the film, to me as an adult, was still pretty entertaining and brought back memories. It was also nice to know that this film was actually edited from the 1977 TV-series Dinosaur War, which explains the movie's prologue of different monsters that weren't featured in the actual plot.

Overall, it was great seeing this film again and finally knowing the title. Although I didn't find the movie to be as great as most of the Godzilla and other Toho monster films, it was still a nice stroll down memory lane and it's a movie I would recommend to kids and hardcore fans of Japanese sci-fi.

Grade B-

I will give it this much, this film is definitely something different. It's live action guy-in-a-suit monster action with anime humans. It's obvious that whoever produced this film had a limited budget, but how many movies are there in which dinosaurs can not only talk, but work together to kill humans? Not only that, but I thought it was only cartoons where the monsters literally yell "ATTACK! DESTROY! KILL!" as they are attacking the city but, once again, this movie proved me wrong. The concept is hilarious, which in itself makes the movie worth watching, but its hard to follow sometimes and even gets a little typical. Overall its a decent addition to a monster movie collection.