Battle in Outer Space

Ishiro Honda returns to the cinemas with another big, special effect spectacle ala The Mysterians. I’d say that this is a step down from the previous film, not having the same kind of narrative verve (the modest amount that The Mysterians demonstrated) and is more of a straightforward sci-fi adventure. That could work if, again, there were characters of any depth to be had, the kind of lynchpin necessary to bring audiences into an adventure. But, alas, the script by Shinichi Sekizawa is just too thin to accomplish that.

Alien ships attack a Japanese space station, destroying it and causing a panic in the upper-echelons of the world governments. In addition, strange weather events dealing with cold are doing terrible things like lifting entire bridges off the ground, sending trains to crash in the valleys below. There’s a surprising amount of time trying to explain how cold temperatures lessen gravity (nonsense), the sort of science deification that is sadly constant in Honda’s science fiction films which mixes really badly with the fact that the science itself is, well, nonsense. Anyway, the film is better when it just accepts nonsense without trying to explain it, like when Dr. Ahmed (George Wyman) gets remote controlled by the aliens, turning him into a saboteur. What’s the science behind that? Doesn’t matter. It just happens. That’s better.

Anyway, the governments of the world decide that the only action is to send up two rockets to the moon, where the alien radio signals are originating. The first is commanded by a Japanese commander (Minoru Takada), and the second is commanded by Dr. Richardson (Len Stanford). The inclusion of the American commander is interesting mostly because he’s barely in the film, but he gets prominence near the beginning and the end, like some sort of half-thought-out sop to American audiences and distributors who were eating this stuff up at the time. It sort of reminds me of the common practice these days of including minor Chinese characters in big budget films like The Martian to appease the Chinese market and funding.

Anyway, the actual main character is probably Major Ichiro (Ryo Ikebe), the Japanese commander’s second hand man. He seems to be the focus, but this is such a plot-heavy film with hardly any sense of character that it doesn’t really matter. He’s strong, professional man in the middle of special effects. There’s also his love interest (I guess) Etsuko (Kyoko Anzai) who accompanies the team to the moon. The only real bit of actual character work goes to Iwomura (Yoshio Tsuchiya) who gets controlled by the aliens (intermittently, only when they actively send commands). He’s the navigator, instructed to sabotage the mission at certain points (but never the best times to completely destroy the ship because plot), and he feels guilt at his lack of command of his own actions. It culminates in a nice moment in the first of the two action spectacular finales that doesn’t quite seem to make the most sense, but it’s fine.

That leads me to the actual appeal of this film: the special effects. Like most of Honda’s films in this vein, the main attraction is Eiji Tsuburaya’s model work, and there’s a lot of it here. This was obviously an expensive film at the time (probably a reason for the sort of prominent and out of place American character, a potential necessity of funding), and Tsuburaya throws a lot at the screen. The rocket launches, the alien base on the moon, the extended fight on the surface, the counterattack on Earth, it’s a lot, and it’s genuinely fun. There’s a lot going on, and it’s inventive and just a joy to watch.

So, the plot is threadbare but functional, an excuse for special effects. The characters are threadbare and don’t take up too much screentime (except the early scenes when scientists try to explain stuff which is…please stop). However, the film has its focus on what it does best: models doing action and science fiction things. It’s a clear line through the action from one beat to the next, and the characters almost never get in the way. It’s an expensive film of modest narrative ambitions, but it manages those with flare and fun.

I mean, it’s not quite good, but it’s decently amusing for long stretches.

Rating: 2.5/4