Monsters, Monsters Everywhere
Main Cast: Masuhiro Matsuoka, Kazuki Kitamura, Rei Kikukawa, Don Frye
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Hoo, this is a beauty! An anime film done live is the best way I can describe it. I think the only thing you could say is that the monsters really aren’t featured enough for fans. Sure, there are plenty of good battles, but mostly the plot focuses on the humans… or Xilian alien, as the case may be.
We have the Earth Defense Force, dedicated in defending our planet. And we have the M-Force, an elite unit inside this force that is sent out to kill giant monsters, which are a fact of life in the movie’s universe and pop up to pretty much wreck havoc on model (oops!)- I mean, real cities. Most of the actors are Japanese, of course, but we do have Captain Gordon (Frye), a big, tough man who commands the Goten, a huge spaceship-airplane that does a real good job in killing monsters.
But our hero is Shin’ichi (Matsuoka), a soldier in M-Unit. He and his friend and rival Katsunori (Kane Kosugi) are darn good martial arts experts, as shown in a nice fight in the beginning of the film. Shin’ichi is sent off to defend a brainy biologist, Miyuki (Kikukawa) and he does so admirably through the film. But all this is a backdrop to the appearance of the Xilians, a “benevolent” band of aliens who came down and offered their help to the people of the Earth. Are they? Well… I won’t give it away. Okay, so you can probably guess that they really aren’t on our side. Shin’ichi has a great fight with their Controller (Kitamura), another kick-butt martial artist.
Oh, yeah. Godzilla does show up in his own movie. I sort of forgot about him! He takes on a bunch of monsters and, while pressed, manages to defeat them… with a little help at the end.
This is a cheesy, cheerful, wall-to-wall action flick that is pretty darn good. I admit I enjoyed it.
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