Gamera tai uchu kaijû Bairasu, or Destroy All Planets as the American telly version is known, is set in Japan & starts as an evil race of aliens decide to take over the Earth & colonise it since it is the one planet in the entire universe that most resembles their own. However giant flying fire breathing turtle monster Gamera has other ideas & protects the Earth from these aliens, after destroying one of their spacecraft the aliens need to come up with a way to either destroy or control Gamera which will leave the way to total Earth domination free! Knowing that Gamera has a particular fondness for little boys the aliens kidnap two boy scouts Jim (Carl Craig) & Masao (Toru Takatsuka) & then fit Gamera with a brain control device to enable the aliens to make Gamera assist them in the destruction of Earth & mankind!

This Japanese production was directed Noriaki Yuasa & was the fourth film to feature the giant fire breathing turtle Gamera that can fly by using blue jets of fire that shoot out of where he legs normally protrude after pulling them into his shell, I suppose you could say that Gamera is a sort of Godzilla type monster who actually protects the Earth from other monsters. Anyway, the script by Nisan (named after the car?) Takahashi moves along like a rocket & at least isn't boring, it is just one of those indefinable madcap oddball Japanese monster flicks where anything goes & quite often does. Gamera tai uchu kaijû Bairasu is just one of those films which defies conventional logic, you can't watch Gamera tai uchu kaijû Bairasu & judge it next to normal film-making, you just can't. The script is just a strange incoherent mess of bizarre ideas from (very Japanese looking) alien invaders who wear silly little beret's on their heads, having detachable homing limbs, wear what looks like Vicar's dog collars around their necks, have glow in the dark eyes & can fly to their master Viras which is a sort of mutant space squid with beady shifty little eyes, a beak for a mouth, can use the tip of it's body as a spear & is kept in a cage until it is let out at which point it then chops the heads off the other aliens in order to let the inner squid out of them & absorb their power thus making Viras grow to huge proportions in order to fight & destroy Gamera! If that sounds weird it's just the beginning since the evil aliens who mange to build sophisticated spacecraft are defeated by a couple of teenage boy scouts, the spacecraft is controlled telepathically, there's a big bird monster who shoots lasers from it's mouth, the spacecraft looks like five ping pong balls stuck together & despite saving the whole planet Jim & Masao don't get any supper! As I have already said Gamera tai uchu kaijû Bairasu is an incredibly silly film yet it's so action packed & fun that I found it impossible not to like it, I think Gamera tai uchu kaijû Bairasu is a kids film & by that I mean kids of all ages...

Gamera tai uchu kaijû Bairasu was the fourth Gamera film & the first forty minutes features about twenty minutes of footage taken from the previous two Gamera films, War of the Monsters (1966) & Return of the Giant Monsters (1967) which at least keeps the monster mayhem coming thick & fast. The special effects are of the men in rubber suits destroying scale models of Japan, Viras the space squid has to be seen to be believed with it's beady little eyes which dart left & right! The spaceship shots look really silly as well with a stupid looking design. But when all said & done I don't think anyone who knows anything about Japanese monster films is going to go into Gamera tai uchu kaijû Bairasu expecting realistic effects. Well, at least I hope they're not. The fights are fun, Gamera destroying Tokyo is fun as is the whole film really, it's the sort of cheesy Saturday afternoon monster flick that kids used to love watching on telly.

Technically the film is alright considering, OK the special effects are cheap but allowances need to be made. The whole thing was obviously dubbed for American audiences, originally running 75 minutes the American version was reedited & increased to 90 minutes. I actually saw the 90 minute version & there are separate credits for the 'American Re-Recording' under 'Titan Productions' including Bret Morrison as director! It's impossible to know how good or bad the original acting was since the entire thing is obviously & often hilariously dubbed into English but I doubt it was any good in the first place.

Gamera tai uchu kaijû Bairasu is a fun Godzilla style Japanese monster fest, there's plenty of bizarre things going on to take your mind of the ridiculous plot & the aliens silly costumes. I liked it but then I have a high tolerance for this type of cult trash, if you like men in rubber monster suits fighting each other type films then you will probably enjoy Gamera tai uchu kaijû Bairasu & if you don't you won't.

The veering of the Gamera series towards the younger generation began with the fourth film, "Gamera vs. Viras" released a speedy three years after the original hit Japanese theaters in 1965. Even though the previous movie, the gleefully entertaining "Gamera vs. Gyaos" was also geared mostly toward children, it still had an element of terror and dread in it. That is gone here and "Gamera vs. Viras" is an unsuccessfully endeavor. However, that it is hardly due to the fact that it is being directed at little children and those who are still able to find the child deep within themselves (a la moi). The problem with this picture is, despite its wonderful beginning and wonderful ending, most of the middle is just shameless, lazy jigsaw-construction of its predecessors. In other words, it's mostly just stock footage reels.

The opening is very promising. A spaceship venturing for a conquest of Earth is interrupted by Gamera, now fully evolved into the friend of all children. Before the vessel is destroyed, it sends a signal back to its home world and a second one is dispatched. Upon the new one's arrival, the aliens use their technology to determine Gamera's weaknesses and take two boy scouts (Toru Takatsuka & Carl Craig) hostage. Now implicating a mind-control device, they use Gamera to destroy civilization. The thin plot becomes thinner before it ultimately leads up to the titular conflict between the giant terrapin and a slimy extra-terrestrial cephalopod.

The movie is so wonderful at first. Both Gamera and the two boys are very entertaining. The latter are portrayed as witty, audacious, and thoughtful individuals...despite the occasional prank or two. And a scene involving them inside of a submersible racing Gamera underwater brought a smile to my face. But the movie starts crippling itself at the moment where the aliens start searching Gamera's past. It's stock footage from the previous movies, each reel lasting roughly five minutes. The aliens quote that their process takes fifteen minutes and it literally does. There's hardly any narration or trimming of the stock footage; it's just reused. (Frighteningly enough, for the U.S. version, the stock footage reel was increased to a mind-numbing twenty-five minutes!) When this ends, there is some relief, but then it becomes just more reused footage from the previous movies. Sequence upon sequence. And most jarring of all is when they decide to once again show Gamera attacking Tokyo as he did in the original film "Gamera the Giant Monster." Now if you will recall, that movie was black-and-white. This one is in color. Eyes squinting yet? Colorization was not around at the time this picture was made and yes, they still integrate colorless footage into a color movie! Just a slight bluish tint, that's all. And sadly, this drags on and on seemingly without end and wore me out. All of a sudden, even the whim and charm of Mr. Takatsuka and Mr. Craig, both of whom are very good in the film, seems unimportant.

Now the movie does pick up a little when the final battle does arrive. And it's satiatingly lengthy, but even with that, by the time it was all over, "Gamera vs. Viras" had exhausted me and left me feeling a thirst for a lot more. The stock footage it so abundant that if there had been more, it could have been a "Best of Gamera" show instead of a continuation to the series. And as far as I am concerned, a low budget should not be an excuse for ham-handed filmmaking. There are some good things here, including a leading performance by that wonderful actor Kojiro Hongo (who was in the previous two Gamera movies and would later play a small part in Shusuke Kaneko's marvelous "Gamera: Guardian of the Universe" almost thirty years later) but there are also a lot of bad things here too.

Like Godzilla before him, the Japanese producers decided to turn the flying turtle Gamera from an enemy to a friendly monster much the same way Vince McMahon does with his wrestlers. In fact Gamera's such a cuddly fellow here that he has a real love for children, a fact that aliens who are on a mission to Destroy All Planets try to use against Gammera and the earth.

When Gamera destroyed their ship in a previous film which we saw a flashback of, the aliens decide they must get control of Gamera before they can occupy earth. They implant a thought control device in the big guy and for good measure capture a couple of kids.

Their big mistake was capturing a pair of Boy Scouts in Japan for the International Scouting Jamboree. One scout from Japan and one from America become prisoners of the aliens on their ship. And as we all know scouts are taught to be resourceful and are always prepared, though I doubt the scouting manual covers capture by space aliens.

Yes this film is as bad as it sounds with the cheesy special effects and lousy dubbing of the Japanese actors. But these Japanese monster films do have a lovable quality about them and they have a devoted group of fans who should be pleased.