MONSTER ZERO/INVASION OF THE ASTRO MONSTER

 

MONSTER ZERO

 

I used to really love this movie for some reason. It felt fresh and was promoted in magazines like FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND and THE MONSTER TIMES. It played on TV constantly in the 1970s. It has a very likable and lovely cast including Nick Adams. The Japanese cast is just as likable and engaging, relatable, and funny when needed. Akira Takarada as Nick (who plays Glenn)’s sidekick is far from a side kick and may well be the main hero and a brother to a girl who wants to marry a young, cute man named Torii played by the handsome twink who plays geek here---Akira Kubo. I’m sure I’ve seen the male cast here in other things.

 

There are many problems here. The sets and locations are not some of them. They all look fabulous from the villa to the planet X with its fab colors and outer space backdrop. Everything here looks wonderful and imaginative. And the movie tries to be different.

 

The problem is some of the timing of things and the transition from one scene to the other. Glenn leaves with a girl named Namikawa to spend the night. He wakes up with the Controller or some other Xian in the room, trying to communicate with her. We see NONE of this and it sounds as if it might have made a spectacular horrific and even scary scene but it is all relayed to us the morning after by talk from Glenn to his astronaut partner Fuji (the already mentioned Takarada, who plays not only an astronaut but some kind of scientist who later works on finding a ray to stop the alien control of Ghidrah, Godzilla and Rodan).

 

And this isn’t the only scene like that. We also have a narrator telling us from the start about planet X being discovered. Fair enough but later on, civil unrest about what to do about the aliens causes riots and revolts, fighting between factions: give up and give in or fight the aliens. Glenn goes to the already destroyed offices of the aliens who are already on Earth and the office is in shambles. Why? Looters hit the aliens so hard they couldn’t stop them?

 

Most of this would be all right if the monster action was…all right, too. It’s kind of not. It’s not until something like maybe 20 minutes until we see Godzilla and Rodan and then they’re dormant or sleeping or something. Admittedly it is WONDERFUL, amusing and special that they are put in bubbles by Flying Saucers of the Xians and transported across space to Planet X to fight Ghidrah. ALL of this is faked by the Xians, who are lying from the start. They control Ghidrah and always have but fake that he is attacking their planet and forcing them to live underground. There seems to be no air above ground. SO…how would they live there anyway? They also want Godzilla and Rodan to control, too. It seems to me that they could have just taken the two monsters at night and almost no one might notice and even if anyone did, they could have quickly just used the two monsters and Ghidrah to attack Earth that way rather than just play all these lying games and subterfuge.

 

Point is: Godzilla is a guest star in his own movie. The movie is mostly about the aliens, Glenn and his girl alien and his friends. All of them are likable so that’s okay but when we do see Godzilla and Rodan battle Ghidrah on the planet, it’s not really all that exciting but brief. The same happens later on. Taken by itself, the movie might work but in light of the year before’s GHIDRAH THE THREE HEADED MONSTER which worked so well, this…resoundingly does not. We get a lot of Godzilla’s foot crashing through buildings and…a lot of stock footage from RODAN THE FLYING MONSTER and probably MOTHRA of various buildings. One shot is wonderful and for once shows people in the windows running as a building falls down, all of them probably dying. This comes from another movie, again probably RODAN or MOTHRA.

 

The other problem comes from the lack of MOTHRA as a monster here or even acknowledging that Mothra helped stop Ghidrah last time. That wouldn’t be so big a problem IF it wasn’t mentioned that the Xians need Godzilla and Rodan to stop Ghidrah because they both did last time! One poignant scene is when Glenn balks at Fuji’s sadness over leaving Godzilla and Rodan on Planet X. Glenn feels, “We’ve had enough trouble from those two. They’ll find their way.” Fuji is more upset and feels it is wrong somehow. He’s right. It looks great as the rocket flies up and away.

 

Despite looking superior to almost all the Godzilla films before it, this movie does not work in a way that almost all the others before it DO, especially GHIDRAH THE THREE HEADED MONSTER. There’s also nothing new here in the monster battles and again, there’s not enough of Godzilla, Rodan and Ghidrah, though several shots of them menacing the villagers (?) and army men (?) look fantastic.

 

The worst offense though is the ending. In a spectacular battle, that is again, far too short, Rodan crashes into Ghidrah WITH Godzilla in tow and the trio plunge into the water, causing rising floods (and again, almost no people are seen in the buildings so…did anyone die here? In this whole movie during the attacks?). We will ignore that some of the fight looks as if bits were cut out (they probably were in both versions, Japanese and American) but the worst offense is that while Ghidrah rises up out of the water…Godzilla and Rodan do not.

 

What happens is speculated upon. The Xians are defeated, one of them saying, “We will save ourselves. Go with us into the future,” or something like that. Did their explosions mask them going into the future? I’d like to think these evil beings just exploded and died. It seems as if there was a sequel to the Xian saga being set up. In the whole movie the Xians do gestures and say sayings that seem…quite laughable and goofy, giving the movie a sort of kitsch value.

 

Equally odd is the boss of Glenn and Fuji---says--- in the American version that he wants Glenn to return to Planet X to be their first ambassador! Was he joking? He looked serious enough. Fuji gives a thumbs down, a running joke of thumbs down or up between the two men. In the Japanese version, he wants Glenn to go to Planet X to do a survey? What? Was he joking? Or setting up a sequel that way.

 

SO…there are still Xians on Planet X and they can still invade. Ghidrah, the menace of space, just flies away, does he? Why?

 

And Torii (LOVE that when the saucer appears he hugs his girlfriend close to him---it’s so cute) offers to his girlfriend that Rodan and Godzilla (in the US version she mentions Rodan first; in the Japanese version she mentions Godzilla first) are NOT dead, “They’re too tough.”  So…Rodan is underwater and lived, did he? Not sure he’s seen again in the saga but DESTROY ALL MONSTERS seems to be made after this, even if MONSTER ZERO didn’t get to the US until 1970, a few years after DESTROY ALL MONSTERS? The intention, if there was any, was that Rodan did survive.

 

Thus, the ending, with Godzilla and Rodan under the water is not satisfying and resembles the more satisfying KING KONG VS GODZILLA’S ending. Is anything original in THIS movie? And having the evil monster just fly away seems WTF-ish. 

Add to that that the sense of urgency that usually inhabits movies like KING KONG VS GODZILLA, KING KONG ESCAPES, ATRAGON, GHIDRAH THE THREE HEADED MONSTER and almost all the other Godzilla movies (we will try to forget about the sedate GODZILLA’S REVENGE/ ALL OUT MONSTER ATTACK) is totally missing from MONSTER ZERO/INVASION OF THE ASTRO MONSTER. 

We’re told stuff and for once stuff about civil unrest. But nothing feels in danger here. It doesn’t feel dangerous or that anyone will die.

 

Point is the narrative here is sloppy, shoddy, and uninvolving even if some of the characters are interesting. Love Glenn’s use of “Dirty rat!” kind of talk when his alien girl is shot and vaporizes and at another point when he first realized that the aliens are lying finks.

 

So less monster action, more slow parts, good sets and good location work, some good human fights but not enough and surprises (Torii falling through the floor; the small boat being blown up in which we think Glenn and Torii are; somehow they put guards in the boat…guards who were on the boat already?) make a very uneven movie.

 

All in all, this would be okay and an okay movie but it’s not really a stand alone and put against such top Godzilla movies as KING KONG VS GODZILLA, GHIDRAH THE THREE HEADED MONSTER, DESTROY ALL MONSTER, the original GODZILLA US and Japan versions and even SON OF GODZILLA and GODZILLA VS THE SEA MONSTER, this movie really doesn’t work. It almost works.

 

It’s also not as engaging as movies like WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS or even FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD (with Nick Adams again).

 

I wanted to love seeing this again and in a way, I did. It was a good time and I laughed a lot, mostly as the hand gestures the Xians waved and some of the outrageous dialog. The strange transitions from one event to another, though, were just perplexing.

 

The cast deserved better. The outer space stuff is okay. In my head, though, there’s a better version of this movie. Like the aliens in other Toho fare such as THE MYSTERIANS and DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, I think the Xians had potential as returning villains.

CMM #23: GODZILLA vs. MONSTER ZERO Akira Ifukube [For Real] - YouTube