Kaiju battles are all fun and games until someone get shish-kebabbed. See if you can identify the turtle on the left. He’s regretting his choice at this moment.
Gamera vs Viras (1968) centers around kaiju Gamera’s central slogan: Gamera, friend to all children!, but in its darker aspect. This odd movie actually has at least some of the elements of a good story, but with bad acting, harvesting of 15-20 minutes of footage from previous entries in this series, and awful special effects, it’s hard to take seriously. In a nutshell, two boys, one a Japanese Boy Scout, and the other an American Boy Scout (Far East Council), hijack, as a prank, a small (too small?) research submarine for a joyride in Tokyo harbor. Soon, they find Gamera mooching around the bottom, and engage him (is it a him, or a her? I’m not sure it’s ever mentioned) in a playful race.
But then a ship from planet Viras appears. Gamera had foiled an attack on Earth by a Viras ship earlier; this is revenge. Gamera is immobilized, along with the boys, but the boys escape. Gamera’s memories are scanned and soon his fondness for human children is identified as a weakness. The boys are captured and used to force Gamera to attack Tokyo. Because the boys are captive, the UN Security Council agrees to surrender.
First Gamera, then the UN Security Council. Is there something about young boys that makes them all-important? Or is Gamera just a wimp?
But these are not passive little boys. They’re busy wreaking their own brand of trouble on the ship of Viras, messing with crewmen, power connections, and communing with a fellow prisoner, nicknamed ‘Space Monster’. Eventually, they find a way off the ship, and Gamera makes the ship his prey.
Story over? Nope.
That’s Mr. Space Amoeba to you, bub.
The sad-eyed ‘Space Monster’ turns out to be the Captain of the Viras. In the shattered wreckage of the ship, he, or maybe ‘it’, absorbs the crew survivors (“but Captain!”) and becomes a towering kaiju, oddly reminiscent of the kaiju in Space Amoeba (1970), if somewhat more monochromatic. It and Gamera then engage in an epic battle, complete with a shish-kebabbing and a cheering section.
There are positive story elements present: apparent end of the good guy turtle, plucky little guys who get themselves out of sticky situations, and … and … how about oddly reserved parents who suggest the boys should be put to bed without supper after all this fun? Oh, wait. Sometimes the eyes of the invaders are kind of fun.
But yeah. The aforementioned flaws of acting, special effects, and using footage from other movies, as well as ludicrous science and a laboriously creaky plot, overwhelm the good points, rendering Gamera vs Viras a definite No go! in my book.
