Let's get this party started...
The Japanese Version-My prefered version of choice
The Basics: Giant monster turtle terrorizes Japan and the rest of the world...
The Plot: An accident involving nuclear weapons at the North Pole unleashes a giant, prehistoric, flying, sabertoothed, fire breathing monster known as Gamera. An intrepid trio consisting of a reporter, a scientist and his assistant soon travels the world chasing after the monster while working with the various different militaries in trying to find how to stop the evil monster's rampage. Meanwhile, a young, anti social boy named Toshio, who mistakenly believes that his former pet turtle has transformed into Gamera, chases after the turtle as well believing the turle monster to be his friend.
The Kaiju:
Gamera: Public Enemy Number One. The sole kaiju of this flick. The is a giant turtle monster with a tude'. One of my least favorite incarnations of this monster, as the suit just lacks refinement and looks blocky to me.
The Acting: People say lines of dialogue, most of the time poorly. The American GI's drafted as actors in this film are horrible. The Japanese that utter English lines of dialogue are equally bad.
The SPFX: Passable. The animated flying Gamera looks pretty crude but there are some decent minatures including one of the Tokyo Tower. The practical fire effects for Gamera are also a nice touch.
The Other Stuff:
-A very nice build up of tension in the begining of the film. The film has a nice pace and starts out running, cutting out all needless exposition.
-No build up at all is used for Gamera's fire breath. In contrast, the sub plot revolving the "UFO" and it's eventual reveal of Gamera's flying abilities I think is handled even better than in Rodan
-I know Toshio is made fun of a lot, but I like him. He's anti-social to the point of resembling the obsessed little kid in "Let Me In" but he's also a real boy, selfish, foolish ect.
-That being said, why the hell do people in the Gamera movies let kids into military briefings lol
-Z Plan....hahahaha
-Gamera straight murders people in this film...he's a real jerk...yet..
-I think he actually has a character arc in these films...he's a jerk, a murdering a$$ who eventually becomes a friend of all children
-Go Go dancing has border line ruined almost 2 decades of genre film...why, why o why did people ever think that was cool
-Z Plan...once again....hahahahaha. But you Godzilla purists out there can't act like you are so much better, in the original film they construct a wall of electrical towers over night