The Mysterians (1957) Ask any Baby Boomer who saw this as a kid and watch their eyes glaze over with blissful remembrance ........daydreaming of Saturday afternoons at the neighborhood movie theater, their faces stuffed with popcorn and jellybeans........
How could you not love this riotously noisy alien invasion epic from the master of Japanese Monster Mashes, Ishiro Honda?
Forget that oh-so-clever phrase "less is more"........in Honda-world, MORE is more.
This one's got it all.......a kick-ass giant robot who shoots frickin' death-ray blobs out of its eyes......flying saucers........horny aliens in capes and motorcycle helmets who've come to earth demanding 3 Kilometers of real estate and at least 5 Earth girls to do the Humpa-Humpa-Burnin'-Love and help birth little alien half-breeds.
Unfortunately, the Mysterians, as their called, arrive decades before Tinder, so they resort to swooping up some unwilling girls.........without even asking them if they'd like long walks on the beach and cheese 'n wine by a fireplace...........(if only they'd advertised on social media, they could've easily snagged Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie and at least one Kardashian.......
Our government and military forces seem okay with the 3 Kilometers demand.........but they draw a red line when it comes to the whole alien human-girl-trafficking business.........so it's off to all-out war we go.......with a Hey Nonny Nonny And Hot Cha Cha!
And what a war. The Mysterians, like Spielberg's aliens in his "War Of The Worlds", start their invasion literally from the ground up. Bursting first out of a mountainside comes Big-Ass Robot, doin' the Godzilla Two-Step across miniature landscapes and thousands of fleeing people.
That's merely the appetizer before our earthly defense forces and the Mysterians get down to some serious back-and-forth frickin' laser cannon battles.........(cue the cheering from the kids in those sticky Saturday Matinee seats........
Needless to say, the poor Mysterians not only lose their 3 Kilometers of land, but their abducted sex-slaves as well, leading to the first example of Intergalactic Coitus Interruptus........
Cacophonous fun for all ensues......and let's not wrap up this post without mentioning whom we consider the movie's MVP, composer Akira Ifukube, the legendary creator of Japanese Monster scores. Minute by minute, Ifukube matches the movie's non-stop battle sequences with a continuously thunderous score that never lets up........nobody would hear anything like it until 20 years later with John Williams' epic 'Star Wars' music......it's that good.
Sit back, load up with popcorn and jellybeans (of whatever guilty-pleasure candy of your choice) and return to the sublimely silly splendors of "The Mysterians".......when aliens went lookin' for love in all the wrong Outer Spaces.......4 stars (****)
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