Who else but Ishiro Honda, the undisputed GrandMaster of monsters and spaceships could have directed this?
What's not to love? No wasted time.....right after the credits, the alien saucers blow up our beautifully cartooned space station......
And they're kind of nasty little jokers, too........levitating a bridge just before a speeding train hurtles forward to cross it.....ouch. (Even Tim Burton's little brain-trolls from "Mars Attacks" never thought of that one....)
When we finally get to see these little bastards, (from the planet 'Natal'), they reveal themselves as gibbering mice-midgets, complete with space helmets designed to fit over their snouts....
Unlike the previous year's Japanese alien invaders, the Mysterians, the nattering Natalians aren't lusting for Earth women. Just as well, 'cause these Lollipop League refugees probably couldn't get a date to save their lives......not even if they stood next to a hot girl and claimed they dropped their Nobel Prize on the bar floor.......
But not to worry, the U.N. sends an international coalition in a couple of spaceships to the moon, where the mice-midgets have set up operations. (that's another thing we love about this movie......the way it strongly embraces globalism in the midst of a world fractured by the Cold War....)
Space battles galore! Our lightning-like heat ray goes up against the aliens' garden-variety laser beams.......and in the ensuing contest as to which side can do better at blowing shit up.....surprise, Earth prevails......
Rest assured, we blast 'em good, but not before the wobbly-on-its-wires Mother Ship unleashes its ultimate weapon......an anti-gravity ray......
Or as we like to call it, the Whoopsie-Daisy ray.
One dose of the Whoopsie-Daisy ray and half of Tokyo, buildings, cars, buses and people literally come unhinged and go flying up in the air.
What an apt metaphor for today's political climate.......
For pure unadulterated entertainment value, you can't equal the sight of a Cinerama movie theater breaking into little pieces before it hits the clouds........clearly the aliens didn't appreciate the laborious technology that went into synching up three projectors to throw an image on a curved screen....
And as we mentioned earlier, this movie doesn't horse around with anything but a sustained battle of the worlds from beginning to end......no subplots, no character nuance, no comedy relief...(unless you count the intergalactic mice-midgets as laugh-getters)
A wonderful 3 star (***) piece of our childhood..........and a huge BQ Thank You to Sony video for retrieving this one (along with "H-Man" and "Mothra") from the depths of the Toho Studio vaults.........may the Whoopsie-Daisy ray now live forever.......
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