Alicia I love this movie so much

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

soulexpress This hilariously stupid film was edited together from three episodes of "Supa Jaiantsu," a Japanese TV show about an extraterrestrial superhero called Starman. (Funny, he doesn't look Jewish.) Balazar (sp?), the evil leader of the planet Zumeria (again, I'm guessing at the spelling) has been killed, but his brain was kept alive and plans to add the Earth to the Zumerian empire. He will do so by arming his soldiers with nuclear weapons and dispatching the mutants created by Zumerian scientists. In response, the high council of alien leaders (from their base on the Emerald Planet) orders Starman to Earth to stop the invasion and destroy Balazar's brain.From there, we get a lot of strangely choreographed fight scenes that I swear have a "West Side Story" groove to them. These scenes show the Zumerians to be a bunch of wimps. All Starman has to do is kick a few butts, and the Zumerian soldiers flee for their lives. The mutants-- who I've nicknamed "The Radioactive-Steam Breather" and "Hawkwoman"--were so damned silly-looking, I laughed uproariously when they first appeared on-screen. And the high council looks as zany as any gathering of low-budget aliens you'll ever see.Starman is a rather stodgy, uncharismatic superhero. If you played a drinking game based on how many times he changes facial expressions, you would die of thirst. Not to mention Starman's preposterous costume, which gives him a male camel toe that enters the room before he himself does.When the Zumerians "disguise" themselves as Earth people (by dressing like Humphrey Bogart), we're told they paid for their food and clothes by robbing banks. Why they didn't just steal the food and clothing directly is anyone's guess. That's just one of many sub-plots the film introduces and just as quickly abandons. (Tommy Wiseau must have been taking notes.)Still, this is a piece of entertainment made for Japanese children some 50-odd years ago. Its utter stupidity and silliness have endeared it to me. THE EVIL BRAIN FROM OUTER SPACE is 78 minutes of mindless fun that I likely will watch again someday.

Mikel3 Just one question....how come there aren't ever any nice disembodied brains even when not from outer space? We watched this one last night on DVD. It might be a re-edited serial or TV show, I'm not sure. I had avoided those Japanese Starman movies over the years. He seemed a lesser version of Superman. Maybe I was wrong to avoid them. This story was obviously geared for children and gave two of them important roles in saving the earth. Yet, a few of the creatures seemed to be a bit too scary for younger kids.The film had silly overly staged fight scenes, hokey costumes and corny dubbed dialog. In other words we really enjoyed it! Actually, to be fair, there were a few strange looking creatures in it that did freak out my wife when they were on screen. Sometimes they would flash on unexpectedly in closeup. Especially the demon like one with the weird ears and long nails. And the one that looked like a witch.This film is worth seeing if you have an open mind.

nowlang I rate this movie 7 for its theme, purpose, country & time it was produced.This movie is a compilation/compression of the last three one hour features of the "Sūpā Jaiantsu" (Supergiant) series. "Starman" for us or "Spaceman" for European audiences, was Japan's first film superhero and lead the way to future stars such as Ultraman and several animated heroes my own children enjoyed. I highly recommend these movies for people able to look at them with objectiveness and respect for the time-frame they were produced 1957~59. They are also inoffensive for children for parents caring about their youngster's innocent minds. Despite some "ugly" if not "goofy" monsters by today's standards, there is no gratuitous violence or gory scenes and the fight scenes are "gentle" if not dance-like. Special effects match what was available with similar resources like "The Outer Limits" of the mid sixties. Dubbing is average for a production that old which was post-synch in the US –It is also difficult to dub Japanese with English language because of the marked difference in phonetics (sound generation by mouth motion). The original music was replaced with dubbing studio file soundtrack in the US. One has to be cautious criticizing older features especially of foreign origin and not compare them verbatim to our modern computer-graphic FX-loaded violent features of American TV fame. Back in the mid fifties, Japan was still recovering from the ravages of a horrible war that had devastated all of their major cities. Under US occupation, Japanese elders felt threatened of loosing their ancestral identities and traditions. The recent and too-close-for-comfort Korean War had barely missed Japan and ended in a stalemate at a time when fear of another nuclear holocaust was very fresh and real in their minds. Shortly after, Japanese "baby boomers" (yes, Japan had their very own boomers too!) rejected their parent's post-war humiliation and needed to believe in something along Japanese customs, fairy tales, and mythology... so Sūpā Jaiantsu or Supergiant was born. Several Supergiant movies feature Starman protecting or defending children from dangers especially from space (i.e. threats for "above"). According to some natives, this theme had roots in the memory and horror of WWII's firebombing campaign over Japan. I saw these movies in their dubbed and chopped version back in 1964 in Grammar School on our monthly "Midnight Theater" actually shown at 0600 PM midweek. We (kids) were very impressed if not "terrified" by the space creatures but we were all happy that Starman did save the day and the movie ended "like a fairy tale". Forty years later, I was actually touched to relive these same scenes that had fascinated me so much as a kid and impressed me for years to come. I recommended these if you are interested in foreign cinema history or as relatively "clean" thrillers for our younger generation.

winner55 This is a bad film, but enjoyable in a childish sort of way; I'm certainly willing to waste time on it after a hard night's work.Most of the other comments on the film so far have been dead-on; it does look like a re-edited serial or TV show, it is a Japanese variant on the Capt. Marvel type serials of the '30s, it does include some of the same tonality as the later Kaiju films, and it is not very well made. But, as I say, it goes along at a pretty good clip, so its never really dull, and can be watched without using much mental muscle.Historically, the most important thing about this movie is that it's right now the earliest example we have widely available in America of the choreography of martial arts in Asian cinema. (The IMDb date is clearly that of its American release, everything else says this was made in the early-mid-'50s.) The fight scenes are important - Capt. Marvel essentially brawls and wrassles when he fights, like every other Hollywood hero of his era; the fight scenes in "Evil Brain" are brief, well-choreographed dances; this actually makes it more advanced than similar American films of the period, and for this reason worth seeing at least once for all Martial arts fans.