Ganheddo a.k.a. Gunhed (1989)

Directed by: Mastro Harada (the American version is an Allen Smithee production)
Runtime: 100 minutes

Toho Studios (home of Godzilla) and Bandai (home of Gundam) got together to make a movie. A movie full of explosions, giant robots, giant robots fighting other giant robots, McGuffins, a mustache twirling A.I. with a easily defeated plan for world domination, more explosions, weird looking junk robots, weird and annoying kids, and a plot. Sadly if this movie had not been dubbed by a bunch of muppets it would be a greater film than what it is.

The movie opens with two exposition dumps. The first one is a text only explanation about the McGuffin Texmexium. A element that makes super computers even more super and gives all your food that south of the border. There is also an explanation that computer chips and plastics are now more valuable than gold. The other exposition dump explains island 8JO. A island owned Kyron corporation and is home to their manufacturing facility. Overseen by Kyron 5 (the company AI) and a hand full of human caretakers take care of the day to day operations. Years later Kyron 5 starts behaving like a moody teenager and goes to war with the world because no one understands it. We then get to see the last battle between the Gunhed battalion and Kyron 5's defenses.

Years later the movie catches up with a mercenary group heading to island 8JO to steal computer chips from the Kyron 5. I would write more about the mercenary group but all but two of then will be dead before the thirty minute mark. The survivor Brooklyn is a mechanic and is afraid to sit in any cockpit. Babe is a near survivor and has a really cool cybernetic eye patch.

So the mercenaries land on top or the Kyron factory and notice a burning Texas Air Ranger's transport on another part of the island. But the mercenaries don't why their transport is burning or feel like telling the audience who the Texas Air Rangers or why they should care. Instead the mercenaries head into the factory so they can get killed off until Brooklyn and Babe are left alive.

Brooklyn and Babe avoid getting killed as they head the Kyron's and meet with Sgt. Nim. The only survivor of the Texas Air Ranger's transport and in pursuit of a bioroid that stole some Texmexium. So the three of them head to the central processor room where the Texmexium could be located. The trio arrives and finds that there is nothing there but the bioroid shows up and puts the Texmexium in to the processor stand. Having completed it's task, it dives into the Mountain Dew that cools the processor and waits to menace the survivors later.

Being that no one has died in the last five minutes, Babe falls into the Mountain Dew cooling system and dies for no reason. With nothing better to do, the two of them get out of the processor room and run into the end boss robot and are forced to fall into the second act and the rest of the cast are introduced. Brooklyn wakes up to meet Seven and Eleven. Two kids that have been living on their own in the lower levels. Eleven is an older girl who does not speak and Seven is a younger boy who does not shut up. It also does not help that whoever dubbed the voice of Seven is downright annoying.

With help from Seven, Brooklyn find a damaged gunhed and the two of them get it repaired and working. Nim and Eleven take the Texmexium and go climbing to the top of the factory. While Brooklyn and Seven have a repair montage as they fix the gunhed. Elsewhere in the Kyron factory a terminal menacingly counts down. It would be more suspenseful if we knew why it is counting down.

Remember the bioroid? It is still in the movie and stalking Nim and Eleven. The bioroid also possessed by Babe because dying in computer cooling Mountain Dew does that to people. So the bioroid has a hard time killing people but no problem stealing the Texmexium from Nim with a laser thing. At the bottom of the factory, the gunhed is fix, armed, and ready to fight again. This leads to the last act of this movie which is mostly the gunhed and Brooklyn bonding while trying to get to the lever where the central processor is located.

When gunhed and Brooklyn reach the central processor level they are confronted by the end boss robot. With quick thinking, effective use of fire power, and the power of bromance the two of them defeat the boss robot. Brooklyn and Seven meet up with Nim and Eleven who have made it back to the central processor room.

Eleven knows a word that can improve the Kyron AI, so her mouth starts glowing. With the destruction of the boss robot this stops the glowing and she can talk again. The Kyron AI seeing that is beat does the smartest thing a antiongist can do. It sets it's reactor to self destruct in fifteen seconds and it will take our heroes ten mintutes to get to the mercenary transport and escape. However gunhed saves our heroes by stalling the reactor. So our heroes fly away from the nuclear mushroom cloud. The end.

This is a flawed movie with insane dubbing but it is a fun movie. I suggest watching this but try to find the Japanese version.

MVT: The gunhed itself. It is a talking tank that can transform to a robot.

Make or Break: The crap dubbing is the major break for me with this movie.

Score: 6.25 out of 10

The War In Space (1977)

Brotman's Rule has been attributed by Roger Ebert to Chicago movie exhibitor, Oscar Brotman. This movie "law" states that, "if nothing has happened by the end of the first reel, nothing is going to happen." While I'm sure both Jun Fukuda and the folks at Toho Studios had never even heard of Mr. Brotman, their film, The War in Space (aka Wakusei daisenso), adheres to his tenet like spaghetti to Shemp's face. The first act alone contains enough UFO attacks, explosions, gunfights, and window-breaking to please anyone. This is all, of course, a ploy to maintain a fast pace during an exposition-heavy start. It works.

In the far-off future of 1988, the Earth is besieged by evil, green-skinned aliens. Their UFOs (not really, they are clearly identified) fly sorties around the globe, blowing up cities like crazy. Meanwhile, Miyoshi (Kensaku Morita) has returned from America to the United Nations Special Defense Federation's Japan branch to find that his ex-girlfriend, Jun (Yûko Asano), has gotten engaged to his best friend, Muroi (Hiroshi Miyauchi). Amidst this drama, Jun's dad, Professor Takigawa (Ryô Ikebe), is ordered to resurrect and complete the abandoned "space defense unit", Gohten, a space-faring submarine with a giant drill at the bow and plenty of surprises under the hull. Joined by old teammate Jimmy (David Perin), the four blast-off with the crew of Gohten to fight the baddies in space.

By 1975, the first cycle of Godzilla films (known as the "Showa" series) had ended with Terror of Mechagodzilla. However, Tokusatsu (literally, "special filming") entertainment was still prevalent in Japan. While this style is usually identified with superheroes, like the "Super Sentai" series and the "Ultra" series, it also encompasses any film or television show that is heavy on special effects. In the wake of Star Wars, there was an avalanche of rip-offs from every corner of the globe. The War in Space capitalizes on the Lucas film in its marketing, and there are obvious riffs on the movie. The land rover has an "R2" antenna. There's a Death-Star-trench-assault-style scene towards the end. The film also borrows heavily from such shows as "Space Battleship Yamato" (aka "Star Blazers") and such films as 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, at its heart, and for all intents and purposes, Fukuda's film is a remake of Ishirô Honda's Atragon. But instead of repelling invaders from the ocean's depths, they're from the depths of outer space. Plus, the theme of Japanese nationalism is dropped in favor of an idealistic spirit of unity.

If you've ever seen a story about alien invasion made in Japan, you'll recognize the story here. Although not really original, it fits like an old pair of sweatpants and feels just as comfy. The acting is all melodramatic but not totally over the top. The editing is where you begin to get a sense that Fukuda's hand is at work. The aerial combat scenes are loaded with zooms, Dutch angles, and jump cuts. Fukuda seems to prefer this style to keep up his frenetic pacing, but there's never any confusion. His sense of spatial relationships is solid and key in crafting dynamic action scenes. Unfortunately, the finale comes off a bit flat, but this is due to the special effects. More precisely how they're shot. The effects work is well-done throughout the movie (I don't think I ever spotted a wire holding a model up), but the models at the climax don't display any sense of physics. Consequently, it feels more like playing with your G.I. Joes in the bathtub rather than a life-or-death dogfight.

The Japanese people have a fascination with combining old and new things in their fantasy worlds. Spaceships like Gohten and Yamato are designed after (and in the case of Yamato at least, actually employ) old military vehicles but with interstellar capabilities and futuristic weaponry. The evil aliens' flagship is based on a Roman galley, the "oars" actually rotating laser cannons. While we're at it, how do the Japanese seem to have a fully-functioning defense force for every eventuality from giant monsters (G-Force) to extraterrestrial marauders (the other G-Force)? It's as if a Godzilla-free day is the exception rather than the norm (thank you, MST3K).

Despite everything, it's the film's wildness that carries it through. Commander Hell's (William Ross) Roman galley spaceship comes complete with marble halls and pillars. Tell me, why would an advanced, alien civilization be based on Earth's ancient Roman Empire? Cause it looks good, is my guess, though the sets may have been extant from another production. However, only the aliens' leader dresses like a centurion. The soldiers of planet Meshie 13 dress similar to Louis Feuillade's "Fantômas" (black hoods, tunics, and pants). It must be said, dressing like medieval executioners goes a long way in projecting an aura of menace. The Gohten has a giant revolver cylinder that alternately shoots lasers and jet fighters (space jet fighters, of course). Also, the seemingly-useless drill bit at the ship's bow has a delightfully gonzo payoff at the film's end. Hell, they actually blow up one of the nine planets of our solar system (I still include Pluto, please and thank you). But what ultimately sold me on this film was the sight of a captive Jun in leather fetish gear struggling against the iron grip of...the Space Beast.

Now, I've always had an affection for hirsute monsters. Maybe it's because I'm bald. War of the Gargantuas is my favorite daikaiju movie. Sasquatch is my favorite member of the Canadian superhero team, Alpha Flight. You can see where I'm coming from. Here, the Space Beast (played by the appropriately-named Mammoth Suzuki) is our Chewbacca the Wookiee stand-in. He looks like the result of a Bionic Bigfoot, Chewie, and Minotaur love-in. With a giant battleaxe. The costume is cheap and saggy, but you can't (well, I can't) take your eyes off it. Tragically, the character has no discernible personality and is wholly underused. I still loved it.

My feeling has always been that Jun Fukuda has forever been compared unfavorably to Ishirô Honda. It's as if he's the second-tier Honda, and I feel that attitude is dismissive to his work as a filmmaker. His films (most famously, Godzilla vs. Megalon) are often unjustly maligned. The War in Space is, to be truthful, a derivative film, but it gleefully captures what legendary FX creator Eiji Tsubaraya called, "a sense of wonder." And that's something to be cherished and admired, in my estimation.

MVT: Teruyoshi Nakano's special effects are exceptionally well-done on what had to be a shoestring budget.

Make or Break: The "Make" is when Jun is first seen in captivity with the Space Beast. Two great tastes that taste great together.

Score: 7/10