Anyone who has read my reviews in the past knows well that I'm a pretty forgiving voice among my fellow reviewers well, that's about to end spectacularly. I'm a huge fan of Kaiju, schlock and trash cinema, this fits neatly into all of the above categories, yet it doesn't succeed in any of those categories. So, lets have some fun with my first negative review!
First, when you film a movie, it might be nice if the equipment you used wasn't the same equipment my dad used to shoot home movies in the early '90s, seriously, it's that poorly shot. The camera angles make no sense, the camera movement is barely adequate and the picture quality is absolute trash.
Second, the story, and oh what a story it is. Apparently this is a sequel to Reigo: The Deep-Sea Monster vs. the Battleship Yamato (2005), a WWII era Kaiju. It's your typical monster destroys city movie, except it's not. I don't know if this movie was about a family trying to make it rich, a giant monster, or the insanity of a mayor trying to save his city while using insane mercenaries to fight the monster. It's just bizarre, disconnected and half the events of the movie make less than no sense. It's a mess all around.
Lets talk about special effects, I dig cheesy miniature effects, especially with rocking monster suited characters rampaging through a city, I can even appreciate when you have some CGI to enhance those shots, like shooting rockets and tanks firing and the like. But if you're going to mix the two, make sure you at least use the same models between shots, if in one shot the tanks are Sherman tanks and the next is your own kit-bashed tank in the CGI, that ruins the whole scene, and there is a lot of that, not to mention the typical low budget reusing of shots, but that's to be expected. The suit looks great till it moves, you can clearly see hinges and the mechanisms for most of it during the course of the movie. Seriously, this makes Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D. (1990) look like it deserved an Oscar for its special effects.
Ah, the unforgettable characters, so many to choose from: the youngest daughter who's supposed to be in elementary school but is taller than her dad, the tiny ninja daughter, the cranky oldest daughter, dad the miscreant street vendor, the mayor and his cabinet of yes men, the soldiers that are strangely insane. It made less than no sense. Every scene is disjointed and barely reflects what's happened in previous scenes. Again, the characters and acting make any Troma production look like a Cannes runner-up.
Honestly, I can't say enough bad things about this movie, I'd rather be stuck in a room watching The Room (2003) on an endless loop than watch this again, it's too bad to even be a midnight movie. I guess every Kaiju can't be good, but good lord I wish this one had just been left hidden on a shelf.
--Trevor West
