Atomic Rulers

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Japan / USA • 1965 • 101m •

• Directed by: Koreyoshi Akasaka, Teruo Ishii, Akira Mitsuwa. • Starring: Ken Utsui, Junko Ikeuchi, Shôji Nakayama, Minoru Takada, Sachihiro Ohsawa, Reiko Seto, Minako Yamada, Hiroshi Hayashi, Utako Mitsuya, Chisako Hara, Akira Tamura, Fumiko Miyata, Kami Ashita. • Music by: Michiaki Watanabe.

Super criminals are planning to infiltrate Earth with mass nuclear destruction. Only Starman can defend civilization by thwarting evil.

Review:

Poor Ken Utsui, aka Starman, aka the most studly of all Japanese space heroes, forced to endure the tight costume that showed off every leg muscle and every piece of padding added to his costume. He hasn't escaped from that even though these films have not been seen on television since their American premiere in the mid-1960's. They have entered the public domain and connoisseurs of cheap science fiction have gotten to add these to their collections, and even a threesome of wisecracking critics from various planets have had their own say on everything his series of films dealt with.

It's been 5 years since my only visit up to now with "Evil Brain from Outer Space" there's a character that Utsui plays. Here, he ends up honors trying to prevent a nuclear attack, and he ends up with a Japanese variation of Warner Brother style gangsters from the 1940s. Every archetype that featured Nat Pendleton, Slapsy Maxie Rosenbloom and Allen Jenkins are there, given the most trite and cliched dialogue that you could imagine. It doesn't help matters that the dubbing probably changed a lot of what the original script entailed, and the result is something that has to be seen at least once to be believed.

It becomes "Starman meets The Bowery Boys" (or Tokyo Boys in this case), and cheap special effects are rampant. Main base without the nuclear device back and we found it has a science-fiction theme to it, that element is really under played, so the laughs of "Evil Brain from Outer Space" just aren't there. That at least had some silly looking space creatures, equally as "gifted", and this has dogs that look like they have stepped out of another era, just as dumb but twice is forgettable.

A funny moment has a kid running from one of the thugs, hiding in a barrel right next to the big dope, and popping up as if he was playing whack-a-mole. Of course, the barrel tips over and rolls away, and when the gangster catches up with a kid, any threats that was there before simply vanishes. Starman however, does provide memories of dreams for anybody who has ever fantasized about flying. This just doesn't have enough foolishness to really be enjoyable even on a camp level outside of the sudden close-up shots of Utsui's wedgie causing outfit, and even at 72 minutes, is difficult to completely get through.

Review by mark.waltz from the Internet Movie Database.

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