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InGood, Movie Reviews

King Kong (Review)

May 1, 2005By

King Kong


1933
Starring
Fay Wray as Ann Darrow
Robert Armstrong as Carl Denham
Bruce Cabot as Jack Driscoll
Frank Reicher as Captain Englehorn

The granddaddy of all giant monster films! An icon of film! The Eight Wonder of the World! It holds up pretty well for being 72 years old. Sure, effects have come a long way since then, but aside from a few points in the beginning, King Kong keeps pretty much action filled, and follows a modern style pacing after the first half hour. The “Beauty killed the beast” message has been repeated countless times, especially in the dozens and dozens of knock offs over the years. Willis O’Brien pulled off a masterpiece here, and it didn’t take any Dino De Laurentiis, any Twin Towers, any robot apes, or any CGI nonsense. Big budget remakes cannot improve on this, and Peter Jackson’s upcoming version will not take the spotlight away from this one, either.

Tarantula
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Tarantula (Review)

January 8, 2005By

Tarantula


1955
Starring
John Agar as Dr. Matt Hastings
Mara Corday as Steve (Stephanie) Clayton
Leo G. Carroll as Prof. Gerald Deemer
Clint Eastwood as Jet Squadron Leader

Tarantula immediately sets the tone for it’s 1950’s sci-fi-ness by a bleak opening involving a dying mutant in the desert. Over the course of this movie the White Hero and Cold Female Scientist will work together to defeat the Monster Menace caused by the Old Mad Scientist in what would be a cookie cutter movie. It came out in 1955, one year after Gojira but one year before Godzilla with Steve Martin hit the US shores. How much that movie influenced this is unknown to me, but this is a pretty well made for the time giant monster movie on par with some of the earlier movies in the daikaiju genre. It even features a young Clint Eastwood as the leader of a jet squadron that is sent to send the spider to Spider Hell. This movie does differ in the spider is a real spider blown up to enormous size as opposed to a man in suit, so it is similar to other classics such as Giant Gila Monster.

Magic Serpent
InBad, Movie Reviews

The Magic Serpent (Review)

June 25, 2004By

The Magic Serpent

aka Kairyu daikessen

1966

Starring

Hiroki Matsukata as Ikazuki Maru
Tomoko Ogawa as Sunate
Ryutaro Otomo as Oroki Maru
Bin Amatsu as Yuki Daijo


This Movie seems like it would have it all. Ninjas, Giant monsters, sword fighting. Yet somehow it manages only be average. It has a plot similar to Dune, or 5000 other movies where sons of murdered kings return for revenge. So let’s get Started…

NINJA ATTACK! The movie opens strong as a horde of ninjas attack a castle. The master awakens, but is betrayed by his subject Yuki Daijo and the evil wizard Oroki Maru. Master is killed, but his son Ikazuki Maru is shuttled off on a boat. But Oroki Maru turns into a dragon and gives chase. The Dragon has a very familiar roar, suspiciously like another giant lizard known to attack Tokyo and breathe fire. But let’s not dwell on that and get back to the chase. The Dragon destroys the boat and is about to kill the boy when a bird comes out of nowhere and slices the Dragon, with blood spraying EVERYWHERE! It is quite magnificent. The bird grabs little Ikazuki Maru and flies off. The bird also sounds suspiciously like another flying monster that attacks Tokyo on some regularity, but it is best not to dwell on that, either.

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