You won't be disappointed!

Fresh and Exciting

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The film joyfully reuses the same shots of fight scenes from early in the picture later, as if one is not supposed to recall them. Regardless, I still wonder about some of the characters who appear within the film, then disappear after they have served what ever purpose they were created to serve. There are several evil doctors, a lab assistant that steals the brain in the film's opening shots, a few local detectives from the Tokyo Police Department, but, most of all, an exceptionally nerdy pair of siblings- a four-eyed nerd girl about ten years of age, and her eight year or so old snotty little brother-forerunner to the baseball cap wearing little punks of the Godzilla series. After the boy, naturally, penetrates the impenetrable defenses of the bumbling Zimarians, and is finally seen, we see him run away, get a cut, because the denouement has obviously been left on the cutting room floor, and then never see his, nor his nerdy sister's, sorry little asses again.Still, watching Starman battle the same idiotic henchmen- who never swarm en masse, but wait to go one on one with the clearly stronger superhero, is a hoot; no matter how many times the exact same shots are recycled. But, are you telling me that, fifty years ago, they couldn't have forced Utsui to wear an undershirt beneath his costume. After all, areolae are not that….well, you get the point. I guess that's all one could expect for a film that clocks in at less than twenty cents to see. Still, the lone disappointment with the film had to be the fact that Starman never got a chance to make 'nice' with any of the handful of attractive young Japanese babes on hand. It's simply not fair to leave such allure in the air, and then not consummate it. I'd have to give this film a slight recommendation, if only for its silly camp value, and inoffensive mind-numbing. That's still better than the majority of superhero films today. Areola power!

"A giant alien brain is leading its forces across the far reaches of space with the intent to conquer the universe. Arriving at Earth, the monstrous brain unleashes a hoard of monsters upon the planet to spread disease and destruction. The Earth's only hope of survival rests with Starman, the hero from another world, who must use all of his awesome powers to defeat the monsters and stop the alien brain," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.The last three Ken Utsui (as Sûpâ Jaiantsu, or Super Giant) movies, edited together for the USA; it's understandably not very fresh, but "Evil Brain from Outer Space" features a relatively high dose of Starman action, villains, and gimmicks. After the stock footage opening all the Starman movies, a chase scene involving Balazar's brain being carried in a suitcase provides a relatively exciting opening. Balazar and his minions are better villains than not. Still, it's material reproduced down from mediocre.** Evil Brain from Outer Space (1964) Teruo Ishii ~ Ken Utsui, Junko Ikeuchi, Minoru Takada

Keep in mind that the last movie I saw and reviewed just before this one was "Gone With The Wind". I can't really say why I watch stuff like "Evil Brain From Outer Space", I guess it's a need to achieve some kind of balance. What surprised me right off the bat was that this was a Japanese monster movie, but without your traditional Godzilla, Gamera or Rodan. It features a Japanese super-hero named Starman sent to Earth to defeat a horde of multiplying Sumerian mutations from the planet Zimar, whose leader Balazar was assassinated by a de-controlled robot. Balazar's brain lives on and plans to conquer Earth via nuclear war. Whew! Can you keep up with that? You know, if all the characters in this flick weren't Japanese, I could almost swear it was a sample of Mexican lucha libre, as Starman battles a couple of nasty spandex suited mutants in choreographed martial arts dance routines. It's all fairly well suited for the pre teen-ager, just like most of the Japanese monster films of the same era. I did get a kick out of one scene when the civilian Kuwota opens a book and runs his finger left to right over a line of Japanese writing. Even this novice knows that Japanese is read right to left! At least the movie gets as much mileage as it can from 'one of the most ingenious devices ever invented'. With the help of the globe meter, a wristwatch with five dials, one can fly through space, detect radioactivity, and speak and understand all the known languages on Earth. I'll have to get me one of those!

This is remindful of the bad television shows that made up the majority of offerings of the fifties. It may have been the golden age but there was a lot of lead among the gold. This has a sappy superhero in tights (like Superman) who clicks with little kids. He doesn't seem to have any problem beating up 60 or 70 bad guys at a time. There is a threat from outer space and a brain that controls everything. It must be destroyed. The monsters are a collection of Japanese guys in weird costumes. They seem versed in the martial arts, but come to no good end. This isn't a show for adults and if you were to update it and substitute cartoon characters for the humans here, it would fit right in on Saturday morning. Hardly worth the effort.