Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

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

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

From the beginning of the film it becomes pretty clear that there will be little fluidity to the film. For one, we have no idea who was actually the one to drop the bombs that awakened Gamera from his hibernation. Then you don't even really get a good idea of if you're in Japan, or Alaska? But all that aside, it's a pretty great plot. Ancient flying turtle from Atlantis is awakened and (sorta?) goes on a rampage. The love of turtles from a little boy leads him to believe that Gamera is in fact evolved from his own pet turtle, whom his father forced him to set free. Kinda silly I guess, but what more can you ask for in a cheesey monster movie? It's a good start to the series. More were made after this one that turned out much better than the original, but like I say, it's a decent step in the right direction.

This another Japanese movie about a destructive monster. This time they bring in Brian Donlevy to add some punch even though his role is actually pretty minor. But hey he is a good actor. So here is Gammera awoken from a 200 million year frozen sleep by the shooting down of a Russian bomber, loaded with a nuke, that is over US territory. It seems Gammera is only looking for a food source but his source is the humans problem because his appetite is for energy of one kind or another. In this quest it causes a lot of destruction and causalities. In a rather humorous ending they manage to trap Gammera in an enclosure that is resting on top of a space rocket. They launch it towards Mars. Since it seems able to survive most anything I guess there will be more.

Gammera The Invincible set the famous prehistoric flying turtle on the same road as Godzilla. First this film like Godzilla was created out of another Japanese film with simply adding the footage with Raymond Burr to make a different story. Here a whole slew of Occidental players like Brian Donlevy, Dick O'Neill, and Albert Dekker were used.Secondly however where Godzilla starts out as a fire-breathing villain in later films he becomes a monster hero as more terrifying monsters invade earth and we need our home grown monster to defeat them. The producers here foresaw that possibility and left it open to happen, they were better concerned with continuity.Having said all that Gammera The Invincible is like all these other Japanese monster flicks great fun, not to be taken too seriously. He's a sulfur eating creature and there's a great scene of him chowing down on a train tanker car eating it like a hot dog. And he's full of tricks. Foolish humans who think that because they get this turtle on its back he's down for the count. One of the great scenes of Japanese horror films is when on his back he lifts off and flies like the proverbial flying saucer.Cheesy special effects, Occidental actors looking like they're waiting for their paychecks to clear, but still lots of fun.

This "clever" film was originally a Japanese film. And while I assume that original film was pretty bad, it was made a good bit worse when American-International Films hacked the film to pieces and inserted American-made segments to fool the audience. Now unless your audience is made of total idiots, it becomes painfully obvious that this was done--and done with little finesse or care about the final product. The bottom line is that you have a lot of clearly Japanese scenes and then clearly American scenes where the film looks quite different. Plus, the American scenes really are meaningless and consist of two different groups of people at meetings just talking about Gamera--the evil flying turtle! And although this is a fire-breathing, flying and destructive monster, there is practically no energy because I assume the actors were just embarrassed by being in this wretched film--in particular, film veterans Brian Donlevy and Albert Dekker. They both just looked tired and ill-at-ease for being there.Now as for the monster, it's not quite the standard Godzilla-like creature. Seeing a giant fanged turtle retract his head and limbs and begin spinning through the air like a missile is hilarious. On the other hand, the crappy model planes, destructible balsa buildings and power plant are, as usual, in this film and come as no surprise. Plus an odd Japanese monster movie cliché is included that will frankly annoy most non-Japanese audience members, and that is the "adorable and precocious little boy who loves the monster and believes in him". Yeah, right. Well, just like in GODZILLA VERSUS THE SMOG MONSTER and several other films, you've got this annoying creep cheering on the monster, though unlike later incarnations of Godzilla, Gamera is NOT a good guy and it turns out in the end the kid is just an idiot! Silly, exceptional poor special effects that could be done better by the average seven year-old, bad acting, meaningless American clips and occasionally horrid voice dubbing make this a wretched film. Oddly, while most will surely hate this film (and that stupid kid), there is a small and very vocal minority that love these films and compare them to Bergman and Kurosawa. Don't believe them--this IS a terrible film!FYI--Apparently due to his terrific stage presence, Gamera was featured in several more films in the 60s as well as some recent incarnations. None of these change the central fact that he is a fire-breathing flying turtle or that the movies are really, really lame.