I am not a sci fi fan. I watched this movie for one reason - it features one of the last performances of Brian Donleavy. Fans of Mr. Donleavy will find this movie very sad - he appears to have some sort of health problem and is barely able to deliver his limited number of lines. Much to my surprise, I found the rest of the movie much better than I had expected. It has hokey "1960s Special Effects" which are so bad they are funny. Other reviewers have compared this movie to the original Godzilla movie. While there are certain parallels, I think this is a much better film.It is worth watching.

An atomic explosion awakens Gammera--a giant, fire-breathing turtle monster--from his millions of years of hibernation. Enraged at being roused from such a sound sleep, he takes it out on Tokyo.This is so believably done that you'll be on the edge of your sleep.The igloos are extraordinary. So life like.The fighter jets too are so real you'll think you're there.Even the over dubbing is superb.And when the turtle gets down to business, you will be besides yourself. A wild and crazy ride in Black and White.

With the rising popularity of the now iconic Godzilla series, like with any hit cinema event, there was inevitably going to be a crowd of imitators trying to cash in on the success on the big lizard. With Godzilla came the dawn of a rising popularity of the kaiju (giant monster) genre. Many sought after success; a few gained it. One of the few that not only profited, but garnered popularity was Gamera, a giant turtle that could breathe fire in and out and fly by spewing flames from the sockets in his carapace as a means of jet propulsion. But unlike Godzilla, Gamera was marketed as a friend to all children, later fighting other monsters to save kids in peril, and thus Gamera became very popular amongst the kiddies. Unfortunately, that's about the only audience mainstream that the original Gamera series will have any appeal to. While the new Gamera movies directed by Shusuke Kaneko are marvelous, revolutionary monster movies, the original series, including the original, is nothing special.The first Gamera movie, titled in Japan as "The Giant Monster Gamera" was clearly a Godzilla want-to-be. Even though the movie was produced in the era of color films, it was shot in black-and-white. Why? To imitate the first Godzilla movie from the 1950s. Gamera also attacks Tokyo. Because Godzilla attacked Tokyo in the first movie. I don't know much about the Japanese version, for the version I am familiar with the Americanized version, where scenes were cut and new footage with American actors were inserted (is it coincidence that the same thing happened with the first Godzilla film?) Now whether this adds or takes away from the film, I cannot say. But "Gammera the Invincible" is really nothing more than a ponderous bore that just plods along like the big turtle himself."Gammera the Invincible" is a very routine-orientated movie. The characters are from a stock of science-fiction standards, the story is inane, the monster has no real motive for attacking civilization, the acting is laughable, and so on and so forth. The only thing that differentiates it from the Godzilla series is the ending of the movie, but that's also a detractor since the plan that eventually halts Gamera's rampage is completely phony and ridiculous. Now the rest of the movie and many other entries in this genre also fit that description, but this is a direfully stodgy monster movie.And although Shusuke Kaneko would later transform Gamera into an interesting monster with his trilogy in the 1990s, in the original series, Gamera was not an attractive screen presence. He was neither scary nor sympathetic. He just waddles around like a toddler, swaying with each step, and knocks miniature sets over. As usual, everybody wants to destroy Gamera except for a little kid (Yoshio Uchida who was lazily left out of the credits though he plays a 'central' role) who thinks Gamera is a nice turtle.Most movies in the genre that "Gammera the Invincible" is a part of are easy targets for criticism and this one is subject to extra pressure. Even in the company of many other Godzilla-imitators, this Gamera film is not a particularly good entry. And as far as my cinema experience goes, the rest of the movies in the series are either just as boring or worse. Like Godzilla, Gamera would be filmed in color and go on to fight monsters. And like Godzilla, he'd get cheaper and cheaper with every film until it was time to revive the series and make him serious again.It's peculiar. Usually I recommend people to stick with the originals and pass on the remakes. But in the case of Gamera, my verdict is just the opposite. I strongly encourage people to watch the 1990s Gamera trilogy directed by Shusuke Kaneko and to skip over the original series unless interested. The new films are inventive, well-made, exciting, and above all, fun. The original series is a long stream of boredom.

Gammera (or Gamera) is a giant turtle. He walks upright. He flies. He breathes fire. He wrecks ships, lighthouses, and assorted utility companies. He's got a real bad attitude toward technology. Anything manufactured seems to irk him to the point where he feels it necessary to incinerate the offending object and anyone in close proximity. He's a technophobe, and no mistake. It all started when he was rudely woken from slumber beneath the cold, quiet Arctic by a pesky atomic bomb alarm clock with a broken snooze button. Believing an icebreaker ship is the very clock that roused him, he tanks the craft in an obviously futile attempt to hit that snooze bar and get an extra eight minutes of sleep, but in his half-awake state he decides to just fry the clock and go back to bed. Yet the bed is too cold, so he decides to find a warmer place to curl up in...like volcanic Japan! Hmm...nice and toasty there, what with geothermal vents and cities to burn. But first, gotta put out that tacky light of the neighbors that's always flashing into his bedroom. Then it's time to slip beneath the sea for forty winks.Gammera's day just gets worse from there. He just can't catch a break. People keep screaming at him and making all sorts of unpleasant noises to keep him up. And machines are the worst of the lot, so he tries to silence as many as possible. But there's still too much commotion for a tired monster to bear, so he investigates claims of a sensory deprivation tank at a remote facility which prove mostly true. He slips into the tank and enjoys a brief moment of quiet before the thing roars up into the sky to deposit him on Mars where he can continue his nap uninterrupted. Plan Zzzzzzzzz is a success..."Gammera the Invincible Sleep Deprived Giant Turtle"