I’ve reviewed movies like this particular movie before, and the first one that comes to mind is Pacific Rim, and if you haven’t read that review, it’s basically an incinerator; burning away at the film and tearing it apart for being a gilded movie – nothing but a continuous sequence of inadequacy that never failed to assault my brain with failure while presenting pretty visuals to my burning eyes. While I began this review expecting the same thing, I was surprised.

When you think of a monster movie, usually you think of giant lizards or robots, or some unfortunate polymerization of the two, but on this occasion I ended up going back in time for War of the Gargantuas, a 1966 hit from Japan, also the inspiration for Brad Pitt’s acting career, FYI. Originally released as ‘Frankenstein’s Monsters’, the movie follows the premise that the undead Frankenstein monster not only mutated, but reproduced. From him came two giant human-ish monsters that tower over skyscrapers (of course) and are naturally impervious to any human weaponry, except for (of course) our super space lasers that Japan had back in the late 60s. I wonder when we’ll be getting those?

The movie introduces the gigantic kaiju with possibly one of the most accidentally entertaining scenes I’ve ever had the fortune to stumble upon. A lone sea captain is, appropriately, captaining his own freighter. Alone. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean. While I admired the man’s legendary seamanship and dedication to independence, my horror was invoked by an octopus roughly the size of texas as it tried to sink this courageous man’s freighter… by searching every individual room for the sole occupant. It was, however, defeated by half a fire axe.

Before it could regroup and salvage such a calculated assault, our heroic captain turned out to actually just be some random guy as a Gargantua appeared and suddenly shrank the octopus between scenes before wrestling it to submission. While appreciative for the save, the man clearly disrespected the monster’s delicate sensibilities, because it then proceeded to sink his ship without a second thought. I personally felt that this was offensive to the stereotype that monsters are fickle, but I endured.

As the movie progressed, we were introduced to the brother Gargantua, coincidentally the good giant who is the actual hero in the movie, because I don’t remember the last monster movie I saw where the fault is not somehow the humans’. The new Godzilla doesn’t count – it’s still too new to be a monster movie. In 60 years when we laugh how bad the effects are and can mock the story and acting, then it can be a monster movie. Also, Russ Tamblyn is in this movie. If you don’t already know him, that’s okay – he’s the only one actually speaking English in the movie, while everyone else goes on in Japanese around him.

There are actually two English versions of the film – one where everyone is dubbed over in English, and another where someone realized they didn’t have to dub over Tamblyn, the guy who was actually speaking English. However, language is no barrier for the entertainment value people wearing monster suits slamming each other into miniature buildings and missing punches because they can’t see in their suits. Or the people making some of the most unseen facial expressions in the history of mankind. I’ve been in a car accident where I watched a car slam into my side of my car at almost 60 miles per hour, and my look of fear was nothing on the looks these people have with some of the most mundane things, like…. waking up. I’ve had some truly horrendous Monday mornings, but these people make me look like a vacated puppet.

In a moment of seriousness, though, the movie did follow a fairly linear story and tied things up nicely with resolution for the characters. While open ended, it’s probably for the best, and it actually received a good rating from IMDB and other movie critics. Sadly enough, there was a sequel planned where the brothers took on Godzilla, but I suppose our universe needed a break from the absolute paragon of cinematographic quintessence that was this movie.

I give War of the Gargantuas at least 3 out of 5 stars. No, I give it 3 out of 5 strong independent Sea Captains who don’t need no crew to support them, because without them, where in the world would we really be? I recommend this movie to anyone, because no matter who you are, you have something to learn and enjoy from War of the Gargantuas.