Attack of the Super Monsters

Wow, this was something. The kaiju dinosaur monsters are depicted in 3D clay stop-motion animation. After being imprissoned for (I didn't catch how long, but at least millenia), they awaken, vowing vengeance upon all humans. They turn all of the dogs on earth red, which somehow makes them evil, and the dogs start wreakaing havoc and destruction on humans and their cities.

It's up to four heros, depicted in 2D cell animation, to somehow stop the madness. Unfortunately, two of the heroes are bumbling klutzes. The other two are siblings? Married? I couldn't tell, but they unite in mind, body, and spirit to fight the evil monsters and restore sanity.

The rapid switch between the stop-motion and cell animation was jarring. Overall, the movie was quite bonkers.

Watched via "Rifftrax: Attack of the Super Monsters"

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-

Part of being a semi-professional film critic involves having to watch close to everything I can lay my grubby, Cheetos stained fingers on. Walking into a movie theater, popcorn and Milkduds in- hand, naively waiting for the most recent helping of Uwe Boll to not be that bad, is a grueling torture in the ball park of getting your teeth cleaned. So what does one do to get prepared? What can one do to inoculate against the demons of terrible contemporary films.

Let me tell you right now if Uwe Boll/Michael Bay/Brett Ratner are the directors you think of as the cinematic whipping boys of a generation, you clearly need to see worse movies. Take for instance Attack of the Super Monsters, a 1982 direct-to-video steamer that brings new meaning to the word cheap. Set in the tokusatsu tinged world of 1980's Japan, the film pits humans against the fire- breathing, mind controlling dinosaurs who have mushroomed out of the world's crust. The leader of the dinosaurs; Emperor Tyrannos (Reynolds) uses a broad array of tactics to defeat the human armies but always seems to be stopped in the nick-of-time by Jim (Woren), Gem (Levenson) and the rest of the Gemini Force.

Here's the kicker, the film mixes cheap Manga inspired animation, photo real backgrounds and the patented chestnut of guys wearing monsters suits stomping on miniatures. The result is something that almost works in gleefully recapturing the childhood glory days of taking Hot Wheels and action figures and crashing them into one another. The plot further enforces that notion when twins Jim and Gem, in a show of maximum effort, form into a half-human, half- cyborg hermaphrodite called Gemini. The purpose of them combining is to make their flying tank vehicle Izen I into a drilling machine, the subtext of which is enough to make a midnight TV watcher squirt Dr. Pepper through his nostrils.

The film is composed of the first four episodes of the Japanese kids TV show Kyoryu Senso Aizenbogu (197-Present) and boy does it show. Emperor Tyrannos, who seemingly has unlimited psychic abilities, uses the "monster of the week" formula, fighting wars by proxy like a dime- store Repulsa. He uses dogs, then rats, then bats (oh my) to destroy all humans but is always foiled and forced to flee. To complete the Super Sentai clichés, Attack of the Super Monsters manages to add two lovably doofy sidekicks, the short and chubby Jerry (Perry) and the elderly Eddie (Perry again) who, you guessed it, pilot the Gemini crew's auxiliary vehicle.

I'm not sure what's scarier, the fact that a movie can be made squishing a few episodes of an old TV series together or that there's an audience for this kind of graft. There's certainly a campy appeal to this but that kind of sensibility is only rewarded in a handful of images. Otherwise you're getting the absolute worst the monsters v giant robot sub-genre has to offer; avoid with prejudice.

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)

Merging cheap rubber-suit monsters (They talk!) with low-budget, limited animation is a recipe for disaster. And just like the plot of the Producers, somehow it turns into a hilariously entertaining bit of fluff. It's literally four episodes of a terrible TV series strung together and in the end, there is no finality to any of it. But what more do you want from a talking rubber suited monster vs. anime movie? Shakespeare? You might want to imbibe while you watch it. Invite friends over and riff on it yourself. It's kind of awesome!