Like every villain, Guiron attacks from behind, and Gamera, like every hero, blocks the attack with an invulnerable turtle shell.

A Real Cutup.

GAMERA VS. GUIRON is the fifth entry in the giant turtle’s series, continuing in the dopey footsteps of his great uncle Godzilla. After a first movie introduction where he was all about wanton destruction, by now he has been re-rendered as “friend to children.”

And stupidity reaches a new turtle dimension.

Two young boys accidentally fly a spaceship to an alien planet and– oh my God! Can I pause there and catch my breath before someone thinks I made that sentence up? Let me say up front that human beings wrote this script and other human beings filmed it and allowed it to be distributed, and still others paid money to go see it at the cinema. And we wonder why there are mass shootings.

Gamera the giant turtle intercepts the ship en route to the alien planet (named Terra) and spends the movie trying to save the boys. On the planet, the boys meet two sexpot Japanese “aliens” who explain that Terra is exactly on the opposite side of the Sun as Earth, which is why Earth never sees it. (I cannot begin to itemize the ignorance in that statement. Nor will I even attempt to correct these supposedly human filmmakers on constantly calling the planet Terra a “star.”)

The kids (Nobuhiro Kajima as Akio and Christopher Murphy as Tom, both in their one and only film roles) call to the turtle in the worst English dubbing you will ever see in a Japanese film, which it seems to understand, as it’s seen so many Godzilla films. The witless dialogue by Nisan Takahashi tries to show off his knowledge of astronomy, and proves conclusively he possesses none.

The winged monster named Gaos appears and flies around for no reason. Then this movie’s feature doofus climbs out of a hole in the ground – Guiron, a blade-headed monster that only proves Japanese monster filmmakers don’t give a fuck anymore. It’s kindergarten craft hour, as it looks like this monster was thrown together by five-year-olds. Guiron carves up Gaos in neat pieces of round foam rubber that ooze no blood, bone or internal organs.

Childish, ignorant, puerile, plotless, Gamera defeats Guiron, but not before being drowned, sliced and stabbed with shuriken. Gamera uses his fire breath, shell strength and combustion engines that shoot fire through his feet enabling him to fly. Exactly how stupid do things have to get around here before we have a walkout? Answer: pretty damn stupid, as Akio and Tom defeat the alien temptresses, who have total control of the weather and want to eat their brains. Like I said…

How do we even rationalize/explain how Gamera takes the boys back to Earth – specifically, Japan – through interstellar space, carrying them in the spaceship, which he prompts them to get into? We might as well explain how turtles fly using combustion engines through their feet.

END