Gamera, the Giant Monster (1965) Review

Gamera, the Giant Monster (1965) Review

 

A scientist, his assistant, and a reporter are visiting an Inuit village when some unknown fighter planes fly overhead. One of the planes is shot down by American fighter jets and crashes into the ice, detonating its cargo: an atomic bomb. Where was this plane from, and why was it carrying an A-bomb? We never find out. But, in no time flat, this atomic explosion awakens something frozen in the ice, and we get our first look at GAMERA: a giant prehistoric turtle! What I always appreciated about this first Gamera movie is how quickly it gets things going. There’s no slow suspenseful build-up or attempts to hide the monster, Gamera breaks out of the ice and is shown right away, making his terrifying-and-yet-also-hilarious screaming roar as the title flashes over the screen.

Gamera is a threat to the entire world, because not only is he large, aggressive, and resistant to modern weaponry, he consumes sources of energy, including fossil fuels and actual burning flames. How cool is that? It’s one thing to breathe fire like a dragon, but what other monster is badass enough to also consume fire? The military and the scientists work together to try to stop the monster, but one plan after the other fails, and Gamera causes plenty of destruction. When he first escapes his icy tomb he destroys a ship, then later wrecks a lighthouse, and eventually he attacks Tokyo in what I think is the best scene of the movie. We don’t get much more Gamera action in this first film than we get Godzilla action in the original Godzilla, but when he’s on screen it’s more than satisfactory.

What it comes down to is Plan Z, which is a perfect name for the plan because it’s the last thing you’d ever expect them to do. They lure Gamera to a launch pad with fire, and two halves of a metal capsule close over top of him, concealing him inside. The two halves fuse together, and out of the launch pad rises a rocket ship! That’s right, Gamera is trapped in the nose cone of a rocket that is launched into orbit toward Mars. Believe it or not, a line from the original Alien reminds me of the end of this movie. Ripley says: “We'll go step by step and cut off every bulkhead and every vent until we have it cornered, and then we'll blow it the f*ck out into space.” At the end she should’ve added “Just like Gamera!”  

As a kid, I loved Gamera, and now I’m an adult, but I can still remember what it was like seeing Gamera for the first time through my young eyes, processing it with my naïve, uncorrupted mind. As an adult, I look at the Showa Era Gamera movies for what they are, and I have to say…they really were made for kids. Normally, I find it bothersome when movie critics say stuff like “Star Wars is a story about space wizards for children” and downplay a widely accessible film as something that was really just made to be enjoyed by youthful audiences, and if adults enjoy it too then what does that say about those adults? For the record, Star Wars (the original) was not made for kids, and Godzilla, the series that inspired the creation of Gamera, was not, either. I saw Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (the American version of the original Godzilla) when I was a child and it creeped me out, then when I saw the original Japanese version well over a decade later I found it even more dark and disturbing. But, I have to say, Gamera was not ever something that just happened to appeal to younger viewers despite having been made for adults—it is for kids.

Gamera, the Giant Monster does not build up to a tense reveal of the monster the way Godzilla does, nor does it have a character who is tortured by his scientific knowledge, or show a mother and her children crushed by rubble as the monster attacks the city, or a choir of children mourning the death and destruction (all things from the original Godzilla, just to clarify). What Gamera does have are a few main characters who mostly observe the monster from a safe distance, and the one character who interacts directly with the monster is a young boy named Toshio (Kenny in the English dub). Gamera saves him from falling to his death when the lighthouse is destroyed, so he’s never been as horrific as Godzilla. Even though the series became more clearly aimed at younger audiences with later movies, even from the very beginning Gamera was not intentioned in the same way as Godzilla, it was clearly intended to be something younger viewers would enjoy. The VHS releases of the films were marketed directly to the kid’s home video market, and while I did like the movies as a kid, I didn’t like them because they were made to be enjoyed by kids, I liked them because I thought they were equal parts hilarious and creative.   

I said above that Godzilla “inspired” Gamera, but I actually think that’s putting it a little mildly. Here’s a more accurate and more bluntly put statement: Gamera was a complete rip-off of Godzilla. I mean, the similarities are just too numerous and specific. A prehistoric reptilian monster is woken up by an atomic weapon, it is being studied by a scientist who wants it to be preserved not destroyed, they learn about it from a legend told by an Indigenous population, the monster is impervious to all weaponry, they try to kill it with electrical towers at one point, it rampages through a city and destroys buildings, steps on railroads, and breathes fire. Yeah, okay, Godzilla technically breathed atomic breath, so they aren’t exactly the same. The problem with Gamera is it didn’t copy Godzilla’s formula quite closely enough. It lacks strong, sympathetic main characters that keep the story moving in the monster-free scenes and give meaningful connection to the monster character. I find the middle of the film a bit tedious with the back and forth of trying to figure out how to stop Gamera without there ever being any real urgency or clear directive. At one point Gamera just traverses the whole planet and it’s described in such a casual way that it makes him seem like more of a nuisance than a real threat.    

This problem of not being close enough to Godzilla is only true in the sense of the plot. Gamera himself is a very unpredictable monster in this first movie. When you first see him, you’re perplexed by his design. Why the big tusks with that severe under bite? Why is he walking on his back legs? Have you ever seen a real turtle walk upright? Then, when the military flip Gamera on his back and think they’ve immobilized him, he pulls his head and arms and tail into his shell and four rockets fire up from where his legs were! Yes, Gamera is a rocket-powered turtle that can fly by spinning like a UFO. The first time it happens it comes as a complete shock. I’m actually going to compare Gamera to 1979’s Alien again. In Alien, the xenomorph is a scary and interesting villain largely because of its unpredictable and deadly life cycle. Gamera is similarly intriguing because of how unusual and creative his attributes are. In terms of giant monsters, he is unique, and that’s impressive considering how the movie he debuted in was so similar to Godzilla.

I would not call Gamera, the Giant Monster a truly excellent giant monster film, but I think it is a very competent giant monster film and a great start to the series. It has more than adequate production quality for a Japanese Tokukatsu film from that era, and Gamera proved to be a worthy foe with enough potential that even at the end they acknowledge he will be back at some point (assuming, you know, he makes it to Mars and back). The faults lie in the human characters and pacing. It starts with a bang, but then it’s a bit erratic, jumping from fun monster scenes to boring talking scenes, and featuring interactions between scientists/soldiers and the monster that largely lack tension and thrills. It was never my favourite Gamera movie as a kid, but it was, and still is, a fun watch, and that ending is what sold me on being a Gamera fan. The Z plan—trapping Gamera in a rocket to Mars—is more in tune with what the rest of the series would be characterized by, and the very next year after Gamera, the Giant Monster came out, the atomic turtle returned to fight his first opponent in a spectacularly cheesy kaiju brawl.