#1 in my ranking of the Showa Era Godzilla films.
Huzzah! A Godzilla movie I actually like! Sure, it’s still not great cinema, but it doesn’t try to be. Invasion of Astro-Monster still only carries the modest ambition to entertain, but the writing is finally the kind of well-assembled series of events where character arcs and motives have bearings on the plot. It’s just about what I expect from B-movie efforts, to be honest. Throw on top Eiji Tsuburaya’s special effects work, and you’ve got an entertaining package of a film.
The two astronauts of a rocket to the mysterious Planet X, Kazuo Fuji (Akira Takarada) and Glenn (Nick Adams), are barreling towards Jupiter behind which hides the strange heavenly body that has eluded astronomers for so long (because it’s too dark because the science has to be goofy, unintentionally, of course). Back home, Fuji’s younger sister, Haruno (Keiko Sawai), wants to marry the hopeless inventor Tetsuo (Akira Kubo) who has developed a portable alarm for women that emits a loud, annoying sound when triggered. Will this be relevant later? Considering the track record of Honda’s first acts paying off in the third, don’t bet on it. But, let’s just watch to find out.
Let’s just take a moment to notice that the first act of Invasion of Astro-Monster feels different. There’s a wittiness to how things are presented, particularly in the editing, that are more than just basic filmmaking. For instance, Tetsuo and Haruno meet the representative, Namikawa (Kumi Mizuno) to a company to sell his invention. Walking away with the contract signed, Tetsuo says that Kazuo would have to do a handstand to make up for his resistance to him and the idea that he would ever sell his invention. The film then cuts to a shot of the two astronauts upside down. I mean, that’s kind of clever and fun. It then also has an explanation in that Glenn accidentally orientated the ship upside down, which he then corrects.
Moving on, the astronauts land and discover that Planet X is inhabited by Xiliens, led by the Commandant (Yoshio Tsuchiya). They have built their society underground to hide from Monster Zero who terrorizes the surface. And, Monster Zero is, of course, King Ghidorah from Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. The Xiliens have a proposition: they will trade a cure for cancer for the use of Rodan and Godzilla to fight off Ghidorah on Planet X.
The writing on the film isn’t perfect, despite my overall appreciation of it. The film kind of stops for a bit as the astronauts return to Earth, bring the proposal before the UN where the housewife delegation gets a say (I mean,…that’s supposed to be funny, right?). Then the Xiliens just show up anyway, show how they can take the two monsters, and pretty much just hand over the cancer cure without much say from humanity. Considering how things progress from there, it really is curious why the Xiliens felt the need to ask for permission to get the two monsters. They obviously could without asking, and they obviously have precious little respect for property rights. It’d be cool if there was something in there about humanity being the guardians of Godzilla, or something, but it’s just a giant hole in the narrative that never gets explained. Oh well.
So, the two monsters go to Planet X, fight off Ghidorah, and then Planet X reveals itself fully: they want to conquer Earth with all three monsters. Why they wanted to get the two Earth-bound monsters makes sense (especially when you consider the events of Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster which the film makes no real mention of beyond Glenn knowing the monster when he sees it), and the rest is humanity finding ways to break the Xiliens’ control over the monsters. And, surprise!, it uses Tetsuo’s invention! It’s nice how things get set up and then paid off. That’s just the basics of writing, right there.
So, the finale is a lot of busy action, but it’s actually moored into what was setup before. It feels significantly less random and more planned out. The humans have ways to actually affect what’s going on, and they contribute. The little bit of character-based storytelling (namely the conflict between Kazuo and Haruno over her affection for Tetsuo) pays off and actually contributes to the story.
And all of this happens while Tsuburaya’s model work continues to stretch the bounds of what he could convincingly pull off while being delightful to watch.
So, the script still has some issues. The idea of all Planet X women looking the same gets introduced and dropped for no reason. The middle act feels a bit aimless. The Xiliens’ plan doesn’t make the most sense when you think about it. However, the basics are in place, and they work. The light tone (not comedic, just light and propulsive through most of it) helps to keep things moving. The monsters still feel dangerous, even with Godzilla giving his victory dance on Planet X. This is just solid B-movie fun, and I had quite a good time with it.
Originally published here
English (US) · 