4 episodes of a TV show put together to form a movie much like forming Voltron, but this isn't nearly as good as that show. From what I've read the show got better, but that still doesn't change the fact that this was tough watch and I would not recommend unless it's the rifftrax version or you and your buddies want to hang out and riff on it yourselves.
20 Reviews
A serious case of LOL
NerdBat17 April 2018
I will give it this much, this film is definitely something different. It's live action guy-in-a-suit monster action with anime humans. It's obvious that whoever produced this film had a limited budget, but how many movies are there in which dinosaurs can not only talk, but work together to kill humans? Not only that, but I thought it was only cartoons where the monsters literally yell "ATTACK! DESTROY! KILL!" as they are attacking the city but, once again, this movie proved me wrong. The concept is hilarious, which in itself makes the movie worth watching, but its hard to follow sometimes and even gets a little typical. Overall its a decent addition to a monster movie collection.
Live action and anime combine to be a really crazy ride!
Aaron137512 May 2020
Imagine an anime where you get live action models and such being destroyed by dinosaurs! Cool, eh? Well this one had its moments, but they kind of failed on the anime portion of this thing. This is one of those films that is actual episodes from a television show pieced together to make a film featuring monsters attacking every episode like a lot of those Japanese shows in the 70's like Ultraman, only here we get anime heroes who ride what looks like a giant bus into action which is also live action. The whole thing is messed up to the extreme!
The story, some Tyrannosaurus is introduced telling all these weird monsters to destroy, but this part seems to go unexplained and may have just been the initial introduction to the television show. Seems like if these three monsters and the main one went on a super attack they could have easily been victorious, but instead they generally like to attack one at a time and incorporate other, smaller animals to do their dirty work like dogs, bats and rats in that order. I wonder if in future episodes if they continued to get smaller animals to assist. Well fear not as Gemini force is going to help as their team consists of a brother sister combo and two idiots who fly the back half of the bus. For reasons unknown to me, the sister and brother combine to form one being and this for some reason makes their ship stronger. Why they need this odd and disturbing transformation is beyond me as you could just make a more powerful weapon, but hey, Gemini Force!
The monsters attacking is pretty out there, but cool in a way as we have yelling dinosaurs. The first scene had one jumping out of the ground and it reminded me of Godzilla the way it did that. Too bad the anime portion is so weak and poorly animated and I would have much rather they become a giant robot to fight the beasts rather than just a plane with a drill and buzz saws. I also got a bit confused as there are two of the super monsters that looked just like the leader and i was like, "What, they killed him already?"
So this thing is wild and definitely worth a look see. I mean, you have dinosaurs wrecking havoc and brother and sister arguing over the sister's refusal to ask for a refund when her blouse got chewed up by rights. We have dogs overrunning the city and then we watch as the two idiot members bulldoze through the dogs! This thing is just crazy and an insane mixture of various formats to make it even more odd. I will warn you, you will get tired of watching them explain the incredible transformation the brother and sister undergo...
The story, some Tyrannosaurus is introduced telling all these weird monsters to destroy, but this part seems to go unexplained and may have just been the initial introduction to the television show. Seems like if these three monsters and the main one went on a super attack they could have easily been victorious, but instead they generally like to attack one at a time and incorporate other, smaller animals to do their dirty work like dogs, bats and rats in that order. I wonder if in future episodes if they continued to get smaller animals to assist. Well fear not as Gemini force is going to help as their team consists of a brother sister combo and two idiots who fly the back half of the bus. For reasons unknown to me, the sister and brother combine to form one being and this for some reason makes their ship stronger. Why they need this odd and disturbing transformation is beyond me as you could just make a more powerful weapon, but hey, Gemini Force!
The monsters attacking is pretty out there, but cool in a way as we have yelling dinosaurs. The first scene had one jumping out of the ground and it reminded me of Godzilla the way it did that. Too bad the anime portion is so weak and poorly animated and I would have much rather they become a giant robot to fight the beasts rather than just a plane with a drill and buzz saws. I also got a bit confused as there are two of the super monsters that looked just like the leader and i was like, "What, they killed him already?"
So this thing is wild and definitely worth a look see. I mean, you have dinosaurs wrecking havoc and brother and sister arguing over the sister's refusal to ask for a refund when her blouse got chewed up by rights. We have dogs overrunning the city and then we watch as the two idiot members bulldoze through the dogs! This thing is just crazy and an insane mixture of various formats to make it even more odd. I will warn you, you will get tired of watching them explain the incredible transformation the brother and sister undergo...
Much maligned and deserving. BUT...
cornjob-217 October 2002
I'm not here to say this movie is good. When inflicting it on my friends, I have found they often experience physical pain. And while this is not the worst of all Japanese giant monster sojourns (Redman, I'm looking at you), it generally isn't worth it even for a kaiju enthusiast.
BUT...there is something to be told about this movie that people need to know when they go in to see this. When giant monster movies were all the rage in Japan in the mid-60s to mid-70s, dozens of superheroes sprung up to combat this rubbery menace. Some, like Ultraman or Spectreman, had staying power and would later prove to be cultural icons. Others, like Silver Kamen and Fireman, would fade into obscurity.
Enter Tsuburaya Productions. Eiji Tsuburaya's company, the owners of Ultraman and the special effects producers behind Godzilla, decided to continue with the trend that had netted them so much money and also jump on the embiggening anime bandwagon. Hence the new TV series Izenborg. It combined live action giant monsters, miniatures, and fairly primitive anime.
Enter Quality Video. They cut four of these episodes together into one movie. That's why it is "episodic" and "formulaic."
That doesn't explain why Jim hits his sister (which drew laughter), or the line "I'll get you, you ratty rat rat!"
BUT...there is something to be told about this movie that people need to know when they go in to see this. When giant monster movies were all the rage in Japan in the mid-60s to mid-70s, dozens of superheroes sprung up to combat this rubbery menace. Some, like Ultraman or Spectreman, had staying power and would later prove to be cultural icons. Others, like Silver Kamen and Fireman, would fade into obscurity.
Enter Tsuburaya Productions. Eiji Tsuburaya's company, the owners of Ultraman and the special effects producers behind Godzilla, decided to continue with the trend that had netted them so much money and also jump on the embiggening anime bandwagon. Hence the new TV series Izenborg. It combined live action giant monsters, miniatures, and fairly primitive anime.
Enter Quality Video. They cut four of these episodes together into one movie. That's why it is "episodic" and "formulaic."
That doesn't explain why Jim hits his sister (which drew laughter), or the line "I'll get you, you ratty rat rat!"
Wow, this was something
Everybody_Comes_To_Ricks10 February 2023
Wow, this was something. The kaiju dinosaur monsters are depicted in 3D clay stop-motion animation. After being imprissoned for (I didn't catch how long, but at least millenia), they awaken, vowing vengeance upon all humans. They turn all of the dogs on earth red, which somehow makes them evil, and the dogs start wreakaing havoc and destruction on humans and their cities.
It's up to four heros, depicted in 2D cell animation, to somehow stop the madness. Unfortunately, two of the heroes are bumbling klutzes. The other two are siblings? Married? I couldn't tell, but they unite in mind, body, and spirit to fight the evil monsters and restore sanity.
The rapid switch between the stop-motion and cell animation was jarring. Overall, the movie was quite bonkers.
Watched via "Rifftrax: Attack of the Super Monsters"
It's up to four heros, depicted in 2D cell animation, to somehow stop the madness. Unfortunately, two of the heroes are bumbling klutzes. The other two are siblings? Married? I couldn't tell, but they unite in mind, body, and spirit to fight the evil monsters and restore sanity.
The rapid switch between the stop-motion and cell animation was jarring. Overall, the movie was quite bonkers.
Watched via "Rifftrax: Attack of the Super Monsters"
Bad Bad Bad Bad Bad
bkrauser-81-31106420 July 2016
Part of being a semi-professional film critic involves having to watch close to everything I can lay my grubby, Cheetos stained fingers on. Walking into a movie theater, popcorn and Milkduds in- hand, naively waiting for the most recent helping of Uwe Boll to not be that bad, is a grueling torture in the ball park of getting your teeth cleaned. So what does one do to get prepared? What can one do to inoculate against the demons of terrible contemporary films.
Let me tell you right now if Uwe Boll/Michael Bay/Brett Ratner are the directors you think of as the cinematic whipping boys of a generation, you clearly need to see worse movies. Take for instance Attack of the Super Monsters, a 1982 direct-to-video steamer that brings new meaning to the word cheap. Set in the tokusatsu tinged world of 1980's Japan, the film pits humans against the fire- breathing, mind controlling dinosaurs who have mushroomed out of the world's crust. The leader of the dinosaurs; Emperor Tyrannos (Reynolds) uses a broad array of tactics to defeat the human armies but always seems to be stopped in the nick-of-time by Jim (Woren), Gem (Levenson) and the rest of the Gemini Force.
Here's the kicker, the film mixes cheap Manga inspired animation, photo real backgrounds and the patented chestnut of guys wearing monsters suits stomping on miniatures. The result is something that almost works in gleefully recapturing the childhood glory days of taking Hot Wheels and action figures and crashing them into one another. The plot further enforces that notion when twins Jim and Gem, in a show of maximum effort, form into a half-human, half- cyborg hermaphrodite called Gemini. The purpose of them combining is to make their flying tank vehicle Izen I into a drilling machine, the subtext of which is enough to make a midnight TV watcher squirt Dr. Pepper through his nostrils.
The film is composed of the first four episodes of the Japanese kids TV show Kyoryu Senso Aizenbogu (197-Present) and boy does it show. Emperor Tyrannos, who seemingly has unlimited psychic abilities, uses the "monster of the week" formula, fighting wars by proxy like a dime- store Repulsa. He uses dogs, then rats, then bats (oh my) to destroy all humans but is always foiled and forced to flee. To complete the Super Sentai clichés, Attack of the Super Monsters manages to add two lovably doofy sidekicks, the short and chubby Jerry (Perry) and the elderly Eddie (Perry again) who, you guessed it, pilot the Gemini crew's auxiliary vehicle.
I'm not sure what's scarier, the fact that a movie can be made squishing a few episodes of an old TV series together or that there's an audience for this kind of graft. There's certainly a campy appeal to this but that kind of sensibility is only rewarded in a handful of images. Otherwise you're getting the absolute worst the monsters v giant robot sub-genre has to offer; avoid with prejudice.
Let me tell you right now if Uwe Boll/Michael Bay/Brett Ratner are the directors you think of as the cinematic whipping boys of a generation, you clearly need to see worse movies. Take for instance Attack of the Super Monsters, a 1982 direct-to-video steamer that brings new meaning to the word cheap. Set in the tokusatsu tinged world of 1980's Japan, the film pits humans against the fire- breathing, mind controlling dinosaurs who have mushroomed out of the world's crust. The leader of the dinosaurs; Emperor Tyrannos (Reynolds) uses a broad array of tactics to defeat the human armies but always seems to be stopped in the nick-of-time by Jim (Woren), Gem (Levenson) and the rest of the Gemini Force.
Here's the kicker, the film mixes cheap Manga inspired animation, photo real backgrounds and the patented chestnut of guys wearing monsters suits stomping on miniatures. The result is something that almost works in gleefully recapturing the childhood glory days of taking Hot Wheels and action figures and crashing them into one another. The plot further enforces that notion when twins Jim and Gem, in a show of maximum effort, form into a half-human, half- cyborg hermaphrodite called Gemini. The purpose of them combining is to make their flying tank vehicle Izen I into a drilling machine, the subtext of which is enough to make a midnight TV watcher squirt Dr. Pepper through his nostrils.
The film is composed of the first four episodes of the Japanese kids TV show Kyoryu Senso Aizenbogu (197-Present) and boy does it show. Emperor Tyrannos, who seemingly has unlimited psychic abilities, uses the "monster of the week" formula, fighting wars by proxy like a dime- store Repulsa. He uses dogs, then rats, then bats (oh my) to destroy all humans but is always foiled and forced to flee. To complete the Super Sentai clichés, Attack of the Super Monsters manages to add two lovably doofy sidekicks, the short and chubby Jerry (Perry) and the elderly Eddie (Perry again) who, you guessed it, pilot the Gemini crew's auxiliary vehicle.
I'm not sure what's scarier, the fact that a movie can be made squishing a few episodes of an old TV series together or that there's an audience for this kind of graft. There's certainly a campy appeal to this but that kind of sensibility is only rewarded in a handful of images. Otherwise you're getting the absolute worst the monsters v giant robot sub-genre has to offer; avoid with prejudice.
The Worst Japanese Anything I've Ever Seen
Katechan23 August 2005
First of all, let's get a few things straight here: a) I AM an anime fan- always has been as a matter of fact (I used to watch Speed Racer all the time in Preschool). b) I DO like several B-Movies because they're hilarious. c) I like the Godzilla movies- a lot.
Moving on, when the movie first comes on, it seems like it's going to be your usual B-movie, down to the crappy FX, but all a sudden- BOOM! the anime comes on! This is when the movie goes WWWAAAAAYYYYY downhill.
The animation is VERY bad & cheap, even worse than what I remember from SPEED RACER, for crissakes! In fact, it's so cheap, one of the few scenes from the movie I "vividly" remember is when a bunch of kids run out of a school... & it's the same kids over & over again! The FX are terrible, too; the dinosaurs look worse than Godzilla. In addition, the transition to live action to animation is unorganized, the dialogue & voices(especially the English dub that I viewed) was horrid & I was begging my dad to take the tape out of the DVD/ VHS player; The only thing that kept me surviving was cracking out jokes & comments like the robots & Joel/Mike on MST3K (you pick the season). Honestly, this is the only way to barely enjoy this movie & survive it at the same time.
Heck, I'm planning to show this to another fellow otaku pal of mine on Halloween for a B-Movie night. Because it's stupid, pretty painful to watch & unintentionally hilarious at the same time, I'm giving this movie a 3/10, an improvement from the 0.5/10 I was originally going to give it.
(According to my grading scale: 3/10 means Pretty much both boring & bad. As fun as counting to three unless you find a way to make fun of it, then it will become as fun as counting to 15.)
Moving on, when the movie first comes on, it seems like it's going to be your usual B-movie, down to the crappy FX, but all a sudden- BOOM! the anime comes on! This is when the movie goes WWWAAAAAYYYYY downhill.
The animation is VERY bad & cheap, even worse than what I remember from SPEED RACER, for crissakes! In fact, it's so cheap, one of the few scenes from the movie I "vividly" remember is when a bunch of kids run out of a school... & it's the same kids over & over again! The FX are terrible, too; the dinosaurs look worse than Godzilla. In addition, the transition to live action to animation is unorganized, the dialogue & voices(especially the English dub that I viewed) was horrid & I was begging my dad to take the tape out of the DVD/ VHS player; The only thing that kept me surviving was cracking out jokes & comments like the robots & Joel/Mike on MST3K (you pick the season). Honestly, this is the only way to barely enjoy this movie & survive it at the same time.
Heck, I'm planning to show this to another fellow otaku pal of mine on Halloween for a B-Movie night. Because it's stupid, pretty painful to watch & unintentionally hilarious at the same time, I'm giving this movie a 3/10, an improvement from the 0.5/10 I was originally going to give it.
(According to my grading scale: 3/10 means Pretty much both boring & bad. As fun as counting to three unless you find a way to make fun of it, then it will become as fun as counting to 15.)
Mind-bogglingly awful
Leofwine_draca14 April 2014
ATTACK OF THE SUPER MONSTERS turns out to be a hacked-together film version of an early '80s Japanese TV show that seeked to combine rubber-suited monster mayhem with then-burgeoning anime animation. The result is a mind-bogglingly awful concoction, made ludicrous by random decisions such as having the main villain, a T-Rex no less, talking and laughing like a playground bully.
Each original episode is 20 minutes long, so there are four of them collected here for this 80 minute movie. And the format is incredibly episodic - in each episode, a different threat attacks and is neutralised, with a final credo along the lines of "good work, but they'll be back". Needless to say, this becomes tiresome about halfway through these stitched-together episodes.
The essential plot involves some underground, super-intelligent dinosaurs rising to the service to wreak havoc on our cities, aided with some traditional, dodgy miniature effects work. But these creatures also have the ability to mind control earth's creatures, so that there are plagues of dogs, rats and bats along the way too. It's all very ludicrous, hardly aided by the (in my opinion) terrible animation and general aiming of the material at 3 year olds. Avoid it like the plague!
Each original episode is 20 minutes long, so there are four of them collected here for this 80 minute movie. And the format is incredibly episodic - in each episode, a different threat attacks and is neutralised, with a final credo along the lines of "good work, but they'll be back". Needless to say, this becomes tiresome about halfway through these stitched-together episodes.
The essential plot involves some underground, super-intelligent dinosaurs rising to the service to wreak havoc on our cities, aided with some traditional, dodgy miniature effects work. But these creatures also have the ability to mind control earth's creatures, so that there are plagues of dogs, rats and bats along the way too. It's all very ludicrous, hardly aided by the (in my opinion) terrible animation and general aiming of the material at 3 year olds. Avoid it like the plague!
I put "movie" in quotation marks for a reason here.
boz82428 December 2000
This movie is incomprehendably bad. It begins with several random explosions and then cuts to a sock puppet of a T-Rex that talks (!) to the audience. It goes back and forth between sock puppetry and animation throughout, probably because the film makers couldn't afford live actors. I'll spare you the long, tiresome, relentless plot that drags this pitiful film on for a brutal 85 minutes.
One of my friends found this very rare video at a hobby shop somewhere that sells out of print b-movies, and he bought it for the sole purpose of making fun of it, but, as it turns out, our intervention was not neecessary. This film makes fun of itself better than we could.
I thought that Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from Outer Space" was the cheesiest movie in existence, but leave it to Japanamation/Lego cars/Sock puppets to outdo him. If you see this movie anywhere, buy it without hesitation. It is very rare and worth many, many good laughs.
One of my friends found this very rare video at a hobby shop somewhere that sells out of print b-movies, and he bought it for the sole purpose of making fun of it, but, as it turns out, our intervention was not neecessary. This film makes fun of itself better than we could.
I thought that Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from Outer Space" was the cheesiest movie in existence, but leave it to Japanamation/Lego cars/Sock puppets to outdo him. If you see this movie anywhere, buy it without hesitation. It is very rare and worth many, many good laughs.
First dinosaur movie from my childhood, still quite entertaining!
OllieSuave-0073 August 2015
I used to rent this movie (without knowing the title, only remembering a picture of a dinosaur on the cover) from my local video store quite a bit when I was four to five years-old. When it was no longer available, I was pretty bummed out. It was a great film for kids back then, as I've found it intriguing with all the dinosaurs coming to life and attacking cities (under the command of a Tyrannosaurus king) and them doing battle with the superheroes. It was a clever special-effect touch, blending live-action with animation, which I thought worked fine in the film. There were plenty of action and heroism and the pacing was quick and to-the-point; I didn't find the movie boring at all.
My mom introduced me to the Godzilla movies after this video was unavailable and it resulted me in becoming one of the biggest fans of Godzilla and the Toho canon. After about 30 years later, through IMDb, I've finally found the title of this movie and realized, ironically, it was created by the production company founded by Godzilla special effects man Eiji Tsuburaya.
I've also found the entire stream of the movie on YouTube and watched it again after all these years. Although the campiness of the monster suits and city models and the simplicity of the plot were more evident, the film, to me as an adult, was still pretty entertaining and brought back memories. It was also nice to know that this film was actually edited from the 1977 TV-series Dinosaur War, which explains the movie's prologue of different monsters that weren't featured in the actual plot.
Overall, it was great seeing this film again and finally knowing the title. Although I didn't find the movie to be as great as most of the Godzilla and other Toho monster films, it was still a nice stroll down memory lane and it's a movie I would recommend to kids and hardcore fans of Japanese sci-fi.
Grade B-
My mom introduced me to the Godzilla movies after this video was unavailable and it resulted me in becoming one of the biggest fans of Godzilla and the Toho canon. After about 30 years later, through IMDb, I've finally found the title of this movie and realized, ironically, it was created by the production company founded by Godzilla special effects man Eiji Tsuburaya.
I've also found the entire stream of the movie on YouTube and watched it again after all these years. Although the campiness of the monster suits and city models and the simplicity of the plot were more evident, the film, to me as an adult, was still pretty entertaining and brought back memories. It was also nice to know that this film was actually edited from the 1977 TV-series Dinosaur War, which explains the movie's prologue of different monsters that weren't featured in the actual plot.
Overall, it was great seeing this film again and finally knowing the title. Although I didn't find the movie to be as great as most of the Godzilla and other Toho monster films, it was still a nice stroll down memory lane and it's a movie I would recommend to kids and hardcore fans of Japanese sci-fi.
Grade B-
Enjoyable Show
med77_998 September 2006
Hi.. This film is only the first 4 episodes of a very popular TV kids show that aired in my country during the 80s. The show was very popular and is loved by every one in my country to date (Saudi Arabia), it was a long series of 20 something episodes. I can see why most reviewers hated this film, because its only the first 4 episodes and these episodes are truly not that good, the show however gets a lot better as it moves on, and the Arabic dubbing was quit appropriate ( maybe the English dubbing wasn't good which added to the lameness of this film ). The show changes in the middle of the series, and a new development in the plot occur where the two heroic siblings change into a giant robot the helps killing the monsters just like ultra man, that part is missing in this earlier part of series in this film.
Of course the show has its weaknesses, it was made in 1977, so the direction isn't that good, and sometimes you can tell the fake dinosaurs and the plot of the episodes gets a little repetitive. However, this show will remain a good and enjoyable show that i enjoyed as a kid and still enjoy to watch today with my own kids.
Moe (med7799@yahoo.com)
Of course the show has its weaknesses, it was made in 1977, so the direction isn't that good, and sometimes you can tell the fake dinosaurs and the plot of the episodes gets a little repetitive. However, this show will remain a good and enjoyable show that i enjoyed as a kid and still enjoy to watch today with my own kids.
Moe (med7799@yahoo.com)
So astonishingly bad that it's actually kind of awesome!
iboso6426 March 2020
Merging cheap rubber-suit monsters (They talk!) with low-budget, limited animation is a recipe for disaster. And just like the plot of the Producers, somehow it turns into a hilariously entertaining bit of fluff. It's literally four episodes of a terrible TV series strung together and in the end, there is no finality to any of it. But what more do you want from a talking rubber suited monster vs. anime movie? Shakespeare? You might want to imbibe while you watch it. Invite friends over and riff on it yourself. It's kind of awesome!
what fun!
azbear503 April 2003
My three kids and their friends loved this film.From the animated portions to the dino puppets.My boys were especially fond of King Tyrannus,surely one of the most camp villians of all time.The picture plays like it might have been meant to be the first of many sequels or an unsold tv pilot.At any rate,park your sensibilities at the door,grab your popcorn and enjoy.Let the farce be with you.
INSANE
BandSAboutMovies26 March 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Oh man, this movie. Seriously, this is a film that will challenge your comprehension of time and space, question your ability to exist and then continually challenge you to remain connected to its narrative. A combination of live action rubber suit monsters and vehicle combat with 2D animation taking place for any human interaction, it feels like a forced childhood playdate with that weird kid of your parents' work friends, a child who has toys of all different sizes and scales and plays with them all at the same time regardless of scale, so that He-Man and Optimus Prime have a picnic with Duke and Matt Trakker, all while numerous Hot Wheels and a Tonka truck race around them. The entire time, you are sure that the child you are playing with is hopelessly deranged and could attack you at any moment. I never thought I'd know that feeling again. Attack of the Super Monsters is really four episodes of Ultraman and Mighty Jack creator Tsuburaya Productions' Dinosaur War Izenborg, which combines the anime and daikaiju tokusatsu styles to delirious effect. It'd be weird enough, but then the American dubbing ads completely bonkers vocal stylings to what is already a psychotronic idea: dinosaurs are back and only twins who can become a hybrid being can stop them. Emperor Tyrannous* (known as Dinosaur Satan Gottes in Japan) is the leader of the rubber reptilians who have declared war on mankind from their empire beneath the Earth's surface. The only hope Earth has is the Gemini Command, which has brother and sister team Jem and Jim Starbuck (D-Force, Tachibana Ai and Tachibana Zen in the land of the rising sun) as its front-line defense. At one point in the original cartoon, they were nearly killed and their bodies were replaced with machinery. Later still, they get even more upgrades that let them become a giant robot, as is necessary in shows of this nature. There's also a genius scientist Dr. John Carmody (Dr. Torii) and his two absolute morons of assistants, Jerry Fordham and Wally Singer** (Goro Kanbara and Ippei Kurosawa) who have a pet sloth. Small animals are a major part of this story, as the underworld super monsters tend to possess animals like rats and dogs against their will instead of just realizing that they are fire-breathing beasts that by all rights should be eating all humanity or at the very least eviscerating Tokyo. Just imagine if you crushed four episodes of an American kids show into a sprawling narrative, then translated it into multiple languages and beamed it all over the world. That's what happened here, with this airing in Italy and Arabic counties, who loved it so much that Tsuburaya Productions and a Mr. Jarrah Alfurih from the Kuwait and Cultures Factory produced a documentary called The Return of Izenborg in 2016. While the original series was directed by Toru Sotoyama (who was also behind the Ultraman-related Iron King) and written by Masaki Tsuji (who wrote series such as Cyborg 009, Urusei Yatsura, KImba the White Lion, Tiger Mask) and Ifumi Uchiyama from a story by Hiroyasu Yamaura (who wrote numerous Ultraman series, as well as Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, the Star Wolf series that Fugitive Alien was dubbed from, Galaxy Express 999 and Godzilla 1985, so he graduated from this to, well, the real thing), the American dub is the brainchild of Tom Wyner, who scripted the first English work on Super Dimensional Fortress Macross (which is the first part of Robotech), did the ADR writer and directing of Fist of the North Star and has wild credits like being an uncredited extra in An Affair to Remember, a crew member on The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and doing voiceover work for everything from the Japanese adaption of Marvel's Tomb of Dracula to numerous voices on Robotech, several Star Trek games and as M. Bison in the Street Fighter cartoon. In an even more goofball connection to horror movies, the producers of this were Sidney L. Caplan and Mark Cohen, who a decade before made the Orson Welles-starring Necromancy. You really need to see this, if only to understand that Japanese cartoon sometimes have rats eating clothes and sidekicks who contemplate suicide to bring back their honor, then American kids get cheap VHS tapes of this and their parents use it as a babysitter and no one explains just how strange it all is until nearly forty years in the future. *Dan Warren, a voice actor who is in a ton of stuff, for some reason does the giant dinosaur's voice in a style that can best be described as Pacino in Devil's Advocate but with more cocaine. **Those who have watched way too many cartoons will recognize Wally's voice as Cam Clarke, who was Kaneda in Akira as well as Leonardo and Rocksteady from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Cool film!
Movie Nuttball20 February 2003
I really like Attack of the Super Monsters. I thought it was neat to have a cartoon and Godzilla like monsters in one film. The story is good.I thought it was a good idea to have film like this and if you haven't seen this and are able to find it then do so because I don't think you'll regret it!
Action, monsters, bats, and red killer dogs, what more could you want?
imcomet14 March 2006
This movie gets a 10, hands down! Anytime you have the main character (Jim) putting the smack down on his sister (Gem) you know you're in for some good times. Probably the best 87 minutes of your day. I picked this movie up for $4.99 at a blow-out super VHS sale. I would have paid $20 if I knew that this movie was going to be this great. I only wish they made action figures of the freedom force crew. The only down fall to this movie was the intro theme when the freedom force crew is launched into their monster destroying vehicles. By the end of the movie this intro is played five times and gets a little old after the first three.
Could it really be any worse?
CHAQUITO12 July 2000
I which you could see this movie, but I doubt you would ever find it in any store. I found it at a store that sells nothing but unknown videos. We even spent the $2.50 just to make fun of it. The dinosaurs have been hiding in caves for 70 million years. Can you understand how big a cave like that would be. I think it would cave in with a bunch of dinosaurs stomping around in there. Then, the dinosaurs surface to kill humans that they somehow knew were there even though they had never actually been to the surface. Then, the dinosaurs have telepathy because they are as intelligent as humans. I'm as intelligent as a human, but I don't have telepathy. And just because they have telepathy, they can read the humans' minds and manipulate the English language. This movie is just bad. I though I would tell you that just to refresh your memory. Like all movies with dinosaurs, it has a Tyrannosaurus Rex, named Emperor Tyrannous "who can turn any supermonster [dinosaur] into a murderous beast." They couldn't find a scientific way to destroy dinosaurs with telepathy, fire-breathing, and super intelligence and save mankind, although they really have no reason to destroy mankind in the first place, so they use a practically indestructible combination of twins who come together to make Gemini. I think you can tell that this is a fairly horrible movie so I'm though.
I gave this movie a perfect 10. Wouldn't you?
I gave this movie a perfect 10. Wouldn't you?
Oh, come on, you know you like it
aaronb929224 February 2002
...at least I do!
Granted, it's not "Citizen Kane". But I'd sit through this one over Citizen Kane any day (believe me on this one). You just have to be in the right mood, kind of a buck stupid, Saturday morning cartoon watching frame of mind.
Yes, the plot's repetitive. But hello, what episodic kids show isn't?
Yes, it's a bad movie. But if you can get enjoyment out of stuff like this, this is a gem.
Don't ask me why, but I enjoyed this one. I laughed, I cried. I love "Attack of the Supermonsters" for all its cheesy goodness. I mean, when the monsters die, they explode! How cool is that?
If you like campy sci-fi like Ed Wood or the early Godzilla flicks chances are you will like this one. Hard to find, though.
Granted, it's not "Citizen Kane". But I'd sit through this one over Citizen Kane any day (believe me on this one). You just have to be in the right mood, kind of a buck stupid, Saturday morning cartoon watching frame of mind.
Yes, the plot's repetitive. But hello, what episodic kids show isn't?
Yes, it's a bad movie. But if you can get enjoyment out of stuff like this, this is a gem.
Don't ask me why, but I enjoyed this one. I laughed, I cried. I love "Attack of the Supermonsters" for all its cheesy goodness. I mean, when the monsters die, they explode! How cool is that?
If you like campy sci-fi like Ed Wood or the early Godzilla flicks chances are you will like this one. Hard to find, though.
This movie was horrible... utterly horrible
torinbaana30 July 2002
which made it the perfect candidate for Otakon 2002's Mystery Anime Theatre 3000, it was not to be believed. Without it, I think it would have been unbearable. If you see this movie somewhere, run, do not walk for the nearest exit.
It didn't work for me.
youroldpaljim6 April 2002
I found this film in the "Godzilla and friends" section of my local video store and rented it because I haven't seen to many latter day Japanese monster movies. All the info I gleaned from the box seemed to indicate this was an entirely live action Japanese monster movie. The film started out okay with a live action talking (!) T Rex and a city being attacked by a weird bat/dinosaur monster. Then the film switches to animation. All the scenes involving humans were in cartoon animation but the monsters were in live action. This might be some kind of experiment, but it didn't work for me. The film looks as though some producer culled monster scenes from various Japanese monster movies and T.V. shows and lobbed them together with scenes from a Japanese animated cartoon. The film kind of resembles those God awful Jerry Warren films where he took monsters scenes from Mexican horror films and then edited them together with new footage of American actors reacting to horrors shot in another country years before. The result being an incoherent mess. The films episodic structure only re-enforces this impression.
I thought some of the live action monster scenes were okay. I liked the scenes of a teradactl chomping away at an office building with its beak. However, the constant switching back and forth from live action to cartoon animation becomes irritating. Plus I didn't think the cartoon animations scenes were that good either, but I'm not a big fan of Japanese animation, so perhaps I'm the wrong person to judge.
I thought some of the live action monster scenes were okay. I liked the scenes of a teradactl chomping away at an office building with its beak. However, the constant switching back and forth from live action to cartoon animation becomes irritating. Plus I didn't think the cartoon animations scenes were that good either, but I'm not a big fan of Japanese animation, so perhaps I'm the wrong person to judge.
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