The Mysterians

This is one of the earlier sci-fi movies from Toho studios. Respectable Toho actors and actresses are in this movie including Kenji Sahara, Yumi Shirakawa, Momoko Kochi, Akihiko Hirata, and Takashi Shimura-all actors that appeared in the original Godzilla and Rodan movies. This story involves a group of cool looking aliens called the Mysterians, who want to possess a huge chuck of land in Japan and marry Earth women. The suspense builds when the Earth people resists the Mysterians' demands, which results in a battle for Earth action. Just to note, the actor playing the Leader of the Mysterians was Yoshio Tsuchiya. He also played the Vapor Man in 'The Human Vapor,' Controller of Planet X in 'Godzilla vs. Monster Zero,' and Businessman Shindo in 'Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah.'

Eiji Tsuburaya's advanced special effects highlighted a spectacular battle of fire, lasers, rockets, tanks and flying saucers between the humans and space aliens. A slow and mysterious, but sometimes militaristic and moving music score by Akira Ifukube. A dramatic and somber story by Takeshi Kimura. Directing was once again done by the great Ishiro Honda.

The downside, though, was that the story lacked a solid plot and the female leads weren't emphasized enough. There were too many scenes that depicted meetings held by the officials, discussing what to do about the aliens. These meetings were important in a way, but kind of boring. And, the robot monster, Moguera, was a terrific-looking monster, but wasn't utilized enough. But overall, a pretty cool feature for a sci-fi film made in the 1950s.

Grade B

This is a pretty decent invasion film. This time around, Honda seems to have been inspired by the films "War of the Worlds" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and does a good job in conveying a lot of themes that pretty much permeate a lot of his films, fear of nuclear war and the world unifying for a common cause. Also, Akihiko pretty much built on his portrayal of the tragic hero that sacrifices himself at the end to save humanity and did his usual good job.

The only complaint I have about the film is the fact that the appearance of Moguera takes place too early in the film and his destruction is much too early. They do return him to the end, but I would have preferred to see him as the weapon of last resort that the aliens use to try to deliver the crushing blow. Other than that, this is a pretty good movie.

The Japanese tape begins with an overture. The music with the overture is the greatest film score ever written by Akira Ifukube. So this film concerns hooded aliens who come to Earth with plans to capture and have sex with Earth women. So they release a huge bird-like robot named Mogera (it later returned renovated in Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla) to prove they mean buisness. The army manages to defeat it by booby trapping the bridge and blowing it up while the monster is using it. Then the battle for the cosmos begins with the Mysterians and their ray firing ships and the humans and their markalite lasers. This is another film I believe inspired the film Independence Day. It's certainly the most colorful of any of the fifties invasion flicks. A must. Eiji Tsuburaya also did an exellent job with his marvelous miniatures and special effects.

How many American science fiction movies have conceived of survivors of the lost 10th planet (source of the asteroid belt) occupying a small chunk of territory before being attacked? NONE! Although "The Mysterians" uses some logical lapses to make the invaders clearly the bad guys (just WHY did they send the giant robot BEFORE attempting peaceful coexistance) and progresses WAY too quickly to its rousing finale (the world had these plans for superweapons just laying around), "The Mysterians" is an exciting, entertaining addition to any one's collection of "space invader movies." Well photographed, beautifully scored, decently executed (for the 50s) special effects" and freshly conceived, "The Mysterians" is better, in many ways than later films such as "Independance Day" and "V". Too bad Toho didn't make it longer and make a sequel (though it appears, that's what "Battle in Outer Space" was originally supposed to be.) See it.

There's something endearing about this movie. The plot is good, casting is good (with so many pretty faces, no wonder the Mystery guys wanted to come to earth), and even the score (by Akira Ifukube) remains in your head long after you see the movie. But above all there's a special atmosphere about this movie that won't let you forget it any time soon.

Mogera (Of Godzilla vs Space Godzilla fame almost 40 years later) makes its debut in this movie, and it started its career as weapon of the aliens not a giant UN transformer robot.

Once the fact that the Mysterians showed themselves, earth defense force ( thus the movie's Japanese title Chikyu Boeigun ) musters up all its plans for super weapons and goes on the offensive against the Mysterians (who've shacked up in Japan even before they got official permission from them ).

If military technology can catch up with the aliens so quickly as in this movie, we won't have any problems. In reality from what I understand, we're not even near parity.

Special effects are good, and weapons looks cool (Designed by famous Japanese sci-fi artist Shigeru Komatsuzaki. They have kind of a retro look which still works today) which all adds up to make this movie one of Toho's best.

It's one of a kind movie, and highly recommended to watch.