Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The first must-see film of the year.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Usually when a Japanese monster movie does not feature my favorite monster (Godzilla) I end up not liking it all that much. This one though has a good dark quality about it that most of the monster movies in Japan do not have. I mean at one point this monster in this movie eats someone, now how often does that happen in any other monster movies from this era. The movie also moves very quickly while still delivering the monsters on the screen more often than other movies of this type. They must have known people want to see the monsters fight so why pad the film with a lot of unnecessary plot points. The story has a couple of monsters appearing and tearing stuff apart. One of them is a bit more friendly than the other and I think they both started out as relatively small little beasties. They have an epic battle, a volcano erupts, really this movie has it all as far as Japanese monster movies goes. I also see here this was supposed to be a sequel to another Japanese monster movie called "Frankenstein Conquers the World", however this is the superior film by far as the monster there looked like a messed up boy or something and not much of a creature.

I finally bought the collector's edition of "Rodan" and "War of the Gargantuans". Thanks, Classic Media. Damn, what a good way to waste $25 bucks but the movies are so good it was totally worth it. The DVD is of good quality, although lacking the usual special features I was expecting. I was really hoping to hear the G-experts view on the two films but there is a nice hour-long documentary included. "Bringing Godzilla down to size" tells the complex story of Godzilla's rise to fame and tragic fall, yet soon return. "War of the Gargantuans", another Honda-flick, is a real treat, the unofficial sequel to "Frankenstein Conquers the World". With practically the same production team, the film is pretty damn good. Odako ( the giant octopus) is great in this movie. The last time I saw him was what, 62', back in "King Kong vs. Godzilla"? Sanda and Gailah are a nice break from the onslaught of reptilian and insect monsters, both looking nice and thankfully realistic. The "brother's" conflict is an interesting part of the story, and, like "Rodan", the human carnage really gives a more adult feeling while watching. We see some great action sequences, this movie starring the Maser tank, which will star in the exact same scene in "Godzilla vs. Megalon" thanks to horrendous stock-footage. Because of their "human" appearance and characteristics, the gargantuans can interact with the protagonist in a way a giant dinosaur, three-headed dragon, or giant moth just can't. This film is also one of the few to star an American actor, who fits in nicely. The music is dope, Ifukube delivering a nice and dark score. He even includes a spunky JSDF march, as he did in many of Honda's "Golden Age" movies, a nice edition. To be clear this American version was better than "Rodan"'s, but once again the score is heavily edited, not even including the JSDF theme at all! Either way, that annoying song at the nightclub is included, but seeing as Gailah kills the braud I'll let it go. As I watched it, one can't help but feel such disappointment with Godzilla. After "Invasion of Astro-Monster", the series went to total crap thanks to Jun Fukuda and the crappy scores. 1967, "War of the Gargantuans" was released, compared to "Son of Godzilla". Damn...... If Toho had simply let Honda continue doing the films without the sacrifice of the serious tone for a childish one that soon became played out; maybe Godzilla would've never even had to cut his Showa era short. Just a thought that was on my mind. Back to the 2-disc set, damn, good work Classic Media.

This wonderfully ridiculous Japanese giant monsters wreaking mucho mondo destructo havoc hoot was originally done as a sequel to "Frankenstein Conquers the World" until American distributors momkeyed around with it and omitted any connections this baby has with that previous picture. That minor issue aside, what's left is quite simply one of the wildest, most energetic and brutally violent behemoth beast bashes to ever grunt, growl and glower its way across the big screen.The titular titanic terrors represent the two radically contrasting polar opposite sides of the existential coin; i.e., any living, sentient animal's latent capacity for being either very good or extremely evil. A decidedly malevolent hairy, scaly, uglier-than-dirt green leviathan fights an octopus and ravages the countryside before engaging in a rousingly savage and lengthy toe-to-toe, claw-to-claw, thingo-to-thingo knock-down, drag-out climactic confrontation with its more gentle and benign brown brother. The monster fight seriously smokes something stirring: Our two beastly behemoths vigorously mix it up and lay waste to half the landscape while beating the living tar out of each other like a couple of deranged wrestlers in a totally uninhibited anything-goes cage match. An insufferably smug'n'smirky Russ Tamblyn looks and acts properly embarrassed as the absurdly earnest young scientist who created the leaping, roaring and running simian humanoid Goliaths. Musical guest star Kipp Hamilton warbles the unforgettably atrocious'n'asinine ballad "The Words Get Stuck in My Throat" while doing the twist on stage at a swanky nightclub. A great, delectably dopey humongous creature feature treat.

I ranked this movie so high because it's a must-see for anyone who likes horrible movies. As Japanese monster movies go, this ones a classic. Russ Tamblyn, five years after his bold and exuberant role as "Riff", the leader of the Jets street gang in West Side Story, has been down-graded as an actor by the time he takes the role of the intense doctor in War of the Gargantuas. His total disgust at having to compromise his earlier aspirations of stardom are clearly reflected in his WOTG performance where every one of his lines seem spoken while trying to stifle projectile vomiting. My guess is that the only reason he doesn't break down in tears in front of the cameras while muttering "Why me? Why me?" is because he didn't cash his paycheck from the Toho producers before filming. For this reason alone, WOTG is an example of Mr. Tamblyn's best acting.This is just one aspect of why this movie is a gem. I first saw the film during a late night horror show in the 70's. The Green Gargantua (the bad guy in the movie) was perhaps the ugliest thing I had ever seen and the star of many nightmares for months afterward. He looks like a giant hockey player covered in green carpet and scales and sporting a face that's a cross between an angry Frankenstein and a cosmetic surgery addict (you know the ones I mean). Green Gargantua is unstoppable as he teases the unsuspecting citizens by periodically popping out of the ocean only long enough to run across the tarmac of Tokyo International Airport and munch on the occasional lounge singer before jumping back into the safety of Tokyo Bay. Can you imagine how much of an inconvenience this must have been for the air traffic controllers? I mean, it's hard to plan for that kind of thing.As usual, mankind gets sick of being treated like Crunch'n'Munch and eventually lures G.G. into the countryside where they are hoping to destroy him by performing the gargantuan equivalent of throwing a toaster into a bathtub and carving him up with those handy-dandy masers (those giant flashlights on trailers that shoot lightning). Man, if only the Japanese would have had that technology 20 years earlier. The outcome of WWII would have been mighty different, I tell you. Anyway, G.G. gets torn up and Brown Gargantua (the good guy in the movie)finally shows up to save him. We see Brown Gargantua once earlier in the film as a baby when we discover that Russ Tamblyn's character (along with his assistant, the beautiful Akemi) used to be kind of like his Au Pair when the little bugger was just a Springer Spaniel-sized, milkshake-drinking squirrel monkey. B.G. is much bigger than G.G. (and comparatively more handsome by Gargantua standards) and is able to talk the Japanese army into stopping their assault on G.G. by waving his hand and yelling (B.G. is much more of a diplomat than his green flesh-eating brother).The last act of the movie has B.G. breaking his leg while saving Akemi from a fall, then giving G.G. his walking papers (a tree to the face) after discovering all his new room-mate does is lay around the forest apartment all day eating up everything in the frig (aka, hikers and boaters). G.G. tears back to Tokyo (and I don't mean that slow, cocky saunter we get from other Japanese monsters, but an all-out sprint the likes you have never seen) while a limping B.G. pursues him (I don't know if it's to talk some sense into G.G. -- "Hey, eating people is BAD" -- or what, but it's a needed plot point for a dramatic ending). B.G. catches up to G.G. in Tokyo and they duke it out to a standstill (and you can't tell me B.G. wouldn't have mopped the floor with G.G. if his leg weren't broken). Russ Tamblyn's character and Akemi do their best to keep the armed forces of Tokyo from killing B.G. in the chaos, but are unsuccessful. Obviously, the military has caught wind that Russ Tamblyn is no longer the leader of the Jets street gang and has no authority over them. The two gargantuas continue to fight through the city and into the bay where, low-and-behold, a volcano has just decided to erupt and boil the two monsters as they flail away at each other. The ending shot is of the erupting volcano and the boiling bay accompanied by very sad music. I'm sure the music is designed to keep the audience from following their instinct to say "Yea, the Green Gargantua is getting boiled!", but instead, motivate them to say "Darn, the Brown Gargantua is getting boiled!". My eyes are getting misty just thinking about it.So, there you go. Enjoy it for what it's worth -- a testament to the importance of more enlightened Gargantua conservation laws.