DESTROY ALL PLANETS (aka Gamera vs, Viras)

Destroy All Planets Movie Review

Gamera, the beloved turtle-monster and protector of all mankind, battles aliens trying to conquer Earth. This one was originally Gamera vs. Viras, but in an attempt to capitalize on the success of Godzilla's Destroy All Monsters, it was released in the United States as Destroy All Planets in 1969. So now that we have that confusion tackled, let's move on.

Gamera's ready to move on too

Gamera becomes trapped temporarily by the alien invaders, who read his memories to find his weaknesses--we see the results in flashback form, getting a solid 15 minutes of fight scenes from previous movies Gamera vs. Barugon and Gamera vs. Gaos, Even though there is a striking difference in the quality of the main film and the flashback scenes, I was very okay with this because 1) the black and white of the other films looked better than the poor picture quality of this film, 2) the fight scenes from those movies are cool and 3) it was fifteen minutes we didn't have to hear annoying child-dubbed voices--Annoying children is one thing I can never stomach in these Gamera films, and my goodness, are they ever irritating in this outing. A couple of the kids end up on the spaceship, and Gamera must obey the destructive orders of the aliens, or else risk the lives of the brats.

Here's the spaceship

The inside of the ship is filled with the "future of technology" gadgets we always find in these old-school films, so that's fun. The voice we hear communicating with the Earthlings is horrible, but some of the aliens looks rather sinister, in particular the ones with the glowing, Jesus from Carrie eyes that scared me half to death as a child...okay, they still might scare me a bit to this day.

This guy's not THAT scary

Gamera eventually puts an end to the whole taking orders from aliens thing, leading to the much-anticipated final battle with Viras, who is a squid-looking fella with some sharp ends to his tentacles.

Don't look, Sani

The battle is actually a brutal one, and includes stuff you wouldn't necessarily expect in what is essentially a kids movie, including Viras completely impaling Gamera--I actually felt really bad for our hero for a moment and thought this might be how he goes! Fear not, friends--Gamera not only survives this movie, but he comes back to fight on in future films. Destroy All Planets is very entertaining during the fight scenes, but is largely dreadful between them.

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 6

Destroy All Planets Movie Trailer