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OK, forever ago I was watching something, possibly Dororo actually, and saw a preview for Latitude Zero here that convinced me to add it to my queue. It's a Toho movie from that period when they were doing American joints so... I guess we can expect something that's basically a Godzilla movie except without Godzilla in it. Just the parts with scientists running around and... yeah, why did I decide I should watch this again? There's a reason it's been swimming about on the bottom of my queue forever, I know that.
So... we start off with a lot of narration which really lays the plot out but... it's kinda boring and the narrator doesn't even seem to be into it. Basically we've got two Japanese scientists and an awkwardly enthusiastic reporter going down in a bathysphere to take readings on the current to try and find a speed booster for submarines. Anyone care? Exactly. Eventually though a bg honkin' underwater volcano blows, severing the cable they're being lowered down on and... seriously we are going ALL OUT with this explosion. Goes on for quite a while. Now here' two divers heading down to check on them. They are unconscious and in various states of undress... and speaking of being in various states of undress, why are these people diving down to the bottom of the frelling ocean not wearing wetsuits? They're just in like, shorts and a bikini here. Shiny gold ones. Anyway, the bathysphere gets rescued by some kinda rescue sub thing. It has one of those big entry ports on the bottom, like in SeaQuest, or... what was that cartoon from the 80s that was kinda like thundercats except the characters were all like, were-sharks or something? And they had a puppy who turned into a seal or something. Hey movie, you're not going to be doing much for a while right? I can go check?
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OK yeah it was TigerSharks. I'm not proud that I have memories of that one. Anyway though, back to the movie here. So yeah, the rescue sub is BASICALLY the Nautilus. It's got this international crew of weirdos who dress funny, basically lead by Mr. Roper from Three's Company, and we've got a badguy after them who's basically some kind of underwater Bond villain, and hightech super subs seem to be the order of the day here too. Anyway yeah, there is entertainment to be had here. Also, the whole Japanese/American joint angle here? Apparently rather than pick a language to do it all in originally then redub it later, or subtitle people, they shot every scene twice, once in English, once in Japanese, with the same cast. Now, I'd have to see the Japanese version too, which I don't seem to have access to, but... I don't think one single actor involved in this knows both languages. There is a lot of thickly accented rote memorization going on here.
And man, I still can't get over Captain Roper here. This is SO not an appropriate look for a tough action hero sorta dude. You aren't allowed to act all cool and in control while wearing a swishy green neck bandana like that. It's like if Darth Vader talked like a cowboy or something. Anyway, yeah, we're pretty much all in on the crazy underwater pulp sci-fi deal at this point. Secret underwater city, homing torpedos, holographic projectors, lasers, plots to take over the world and apparently Captain Roper is 204 years old trying to stop Caesar "60's Joker" Romero from taking over the world with his evil super sub The Black Shark. Also, go go cheesy model shots of docking at the secret underwater city of Latitude Zero, with its artificial sun! Captain Roper is bragging about how they don't use internal combustion engines for anything, it's all electric cars and immortality and... yeah, I guess I'm kind of obligated to make a Bioshock joke here aren't I. I mean... it's an underwater city populated by super scientists, in the 1960s and all. It's... just plain too happy though. Can't make it work. Also we've got a random girl in a bathing suit jumping around on a trampoline in the background during all this exposition. Which is kinda weird.
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And wow. This movie is REALLY a product of its times here. Transparent plastic raincoats, gold lamé belts, and buildings with frelling paisley paint jobs. Reporters all "So hey, can I take pictures and write a story about this place? And can I just have some of these diamonds that you just have lying around everywhere? All of these are met with sures. So now he's getting all paranoid. Meanwhile Scientist A is totally having a blast ordering food through the wall computer all Star Trek style, and Scientist B is, well, still recovering from massive head trauma. So OK. The good guys named their city Latitude Zero and their super sub The Alpha. Meanwhile, the bad guys park The Black Shark at Blood Rock.
Oh hey! It's the plot! We've got this here scientist (not one we've dealt with before) who has come up with a "radiation immunization" which in the wrong hands would let a nuclear superpower give it to all their citizens, fire all their nukes, and be totally fine... because... uh... someone is confused on how this stuff works. The Bond villain, whose name is freaking Malic, has kidnapped him and his daughter, and is threatening to do stuff like turn his daughter into some kinda crazy super goofy monkey bird monster, and remove his brain and "dissect his memory banks" to get his secrets. So now the good guys, after taking a bath in the "immunity pool," a hot tub full of Ecto Cooler that makes you bullet proof for 24 hours, are off to the rescue.
And... oh wow. OK, to prove how he's evil and makes monsters, Malic is showing off the process now. We've got his chief henchwoman who failed to kill dudes strapped to a table, then we have cages opening to reveal... uh... oh my. A "lion" and a "vulture." To call this lion a bad and obvious costume doesn't really do it justice. It's astoundingly pathetic. Anyway, he's taking henchy's brain out and sticking it in the lion's body. Much like with Go-Lion, I have to ask... you know it's only the male lions that have manes, right Japan? And dear gods SUCH A FAKE LION. That is the fakest lion ever. It's amazing. Now he's cutting the wings off the, oh I"m sorry, condor, to attach to it. You know... most movies that make monsters like this do it off-camera, but... yeah theyr're filming every second of him cutting an pasting to make this here gryphon. "And now to inject my creation with my amplification serum, which will cause it to grow at least three times this size!" Wow. I'm not going to say I'm falling in love with this movie, because it really is just plain embarrassingly poorly made in a lot of ways, but boy does it ever have heart to it. Oh and the good guys have jetpacks.
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ROUSes! By which I mean people crawling around in rat costumes with red glowing eyes. Oh, and the good guys have al these crazy fingertip guns doing all sorts of stuff, and special armored bodysuits made from "an alloy of gold and platinum" which I still say is just gold lamé. Fire fire fingers men! Seriously. They're shooting fire out of their fingers at unconvincing giant rats. Now here's an acid lake! And more jetpackery. Wow, this movie's got everything but competency in it. "Kuroi Ga was a fool on the woman, and she's also a fool as a gryphon! Why am I not surprised?"
Oh and have I mentioned how Captain Roper's obligatory big beefy Japanese guy doesn't even bother trying to speak english? He's all just "Hai kancho!" all the time. And yeah! Laser-finger those monkey bird monster men gang! Why don't today's cheesy movies attempt to cram n this much random stuff? Even if the end result is never good, it's at least entertaining as heck. So yeah. Rescue successful apparently. OR IS IT? Yeah, we still have to have our obligatory super sub rematch. And man, big No English guy takes a lot of physical abuse in this movie doesn't he. Right, ths isn't looking good. We'd better test out our new experimental Flying Submarine Mode before their lasers finish charging! Heck yeah! Uh... how does that really help though? I'd assume the sub's weapons can aim up and... this is all still technically in an underwater cave, right? Oh right, we have to fly to escape the magnetized cliffs. Silly me.
So yeah, this is kind of drawn out. Oh Hey goes Malic, there's that gryphon I made from a lackey I was punishing. We're stll cool, right? Oh. We are not still cool. Rocks fall, badguys presumably die, good guys escape. Oh dear gods! Zebra striped staircase! So now that we're winding down, Reporter is all so... seriously, why aren't you sharing all your cool sci-fi junk with the rest of the world again? Well because people in general suck. OK whatever. So reporter goes home to share his story, while the two scientists he was with decide to just keep living in the underwater utopia with all the immortality and gold bikini girls for some reason. Turns out Captain Roper was totally jerking this dude around though, so they sabotaged his film, replaced his diamonds with dirt, and generally set him upto be a mental patient. Actually.... yeah, all the people from earlier in the movie are showing up surface side, including Malic there so... we're not doing the whole people are in disguise messing with him deal... but apparently his actual diamond wad was put in the bank for him so him having hallucinated it all is out... where exactly are you trying to go with this ending exactly movie? But anyway yeah, that was pretty special.
