StompTokyo has a few good words:
To the good: the production values are reasonably high in Evil Brain - this was the period in Japanese superheroics where the director threw as many henchmen as possible at the hero, and Starman usually seems to have a staggering twenty or more men arrayed against him at any one time. The sets are good, and the Bat monster is cool.but does not recommend it.
I watched it anyway. It starts with one of those voice-over narrations I've come to see as a hallmark of campy scifi. The alien council on The Emerald Planet is great fun -strange costumes and aliens making arm and hand gestures. And then we get introduced to Starman! All in the first 2 minutes!
"Shielded within that suitcase lies the living brain of Balazar." So we gotta find that suitcase and destroy the evil brain, or the world will end. Starman to the rescue!
"It's imperative that it be destroyed. To do so won't be easy, because it's indestructible." Who wrote this?
The narration continues off and on. This is so lame -in a fun way. There's a cool self-duplicating monster, a one-legged man, a mad scientist in a wheelchair with a big black bird sitting on his shoulder, evil minions in capes, a man with a hook for a hand, a man with a scarred face, a woman with claws, cotton candy, ballet, 2 children (a boy and a girl).... And then The Attack of the Zemarian Mutant! Guns are useless against those claws (?), but Here Comes Starman to save the day! Great stuff if you're a kid watching it on tv on a Saturday morning.
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I've always figured that films like this were to compete with "Sky King" but on a budget. That way they can just use whatever props were laying around in the prop-room without having to think about continuity or authenticity.
ReplyDeleteI should be sermoning -- instead I'm cruising Internet Archive....
=o)