15 Mindless Action Films You Must See Before You Die

A monster known as Green Gargantua, who looks like a stuntman in a moss-covered ape suit, is on the loose, so the authorities turn to Dr Stuart (Russ Tamblyn), who’s dealt with giant monsters before (this is Tokyo, after all).

No sooner has the doc answered his door than another Gargantua, this one with brown body hair and an unfortunate resemblance to Kenny Rogers, turns up to wreak similar havoc. This leads Stuart to speculate that the creatures are brothers, spawned when stray DNA grew on protein-rich plankton….or something. It doesn’t matter because they return to demolishing the sets a moment later, turning on each other when Green’s habit of snacking on the supporting cast causes Brown to lose his cool.

Being a Toho production, most of the third act is given over to their climactic smack down, and even by this studio’s standards, it’s awesome. Buildings are flattened by the dozen, boats become weapons and Brown laughs his ass off at Green’s martial arts pose. There’s a lot of fun here, and yours truly would’ve sat through a third installment even if it whisked the monsters into space for a really incomprehensible plot, but Toho had a better idea: they decided to pit Godzilla against a giant beetle and a shapeshifting robot in Godzilla Vs Megalon (1973).