Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

. . . whereas "GIANT BEHEMOTH" often serves to flesh out the meaning of "redundancy." Calling an ant a "tiny behemoth" would qualify as an oxymoron as well: "shrimp" is a synonym for "tiny," while "behemoth" can be found with "giant" in a thesaurus. If the title for this movie had been THE GREAT BIG HULKING HUGE BEHEMOTH, it may well have done better at the box office. But would the longer title have increased ticket sales enough to cover the overtime necessary for the marquee man to put up such an excessive amount of letters (plus the expense for purchasing several extra "H's" that doubtless would need to be special-ordered)? Behemoths--giant or not--seldom have appeared more threatening than the 200-footer with the radioactive death ray eyes featured during THE GIANT BEHEMOTH. In his head-long rush to pose for fatal selfies with the G.B., "Prof. Sampson" overlooks the obvious solution to London's moth infestation: let one of those "All creatures great and small" English veterinarians cure Big Boy of his radiation overdose. A homeopathic remedy such as brimstone would be bound to perk up Nestor in a day or two, and you know what they say: Healthy behemoths are the happiest (and safest) kind to have around!

Like many mutant monster flicks of the 1950's, this one starts out with a compilation of atomic bomb blasts and a premonition that the radiation fallout may have a disturbing effect on nature. It takes it a step further though, with Professor Steve Karnes' (Gene Evans) explanation that these blasts may have a biological chain reaction that causes a geometrical progression resulting in radioactive conglomerates. Okay, okay, he explained it in simpler terms too. Little fish eat radioactive plankton, big fish eat little fish and so on and so on, until you get a giant behemoth. Then they make a movie out of it.I actually thought the behemoth here, a giant paleosaurus, was done pretty well. The concept of a four legged dinosaur tearing up London doesn't sound like it would work on paper but this guy could get up on it's hind legs if he had too. The underwater scenes might have been even better, the monster really had a fluid motion cruising the Thames River, almost as good as present day animation. The stop motion photography and lifelike presentation of the behemoth was good enough that you didn't mind it when he stepped on a few toy cars that got in the way.I'll tell you what was really scary though. There were a couple times during the havoc on the London streets when the camera focused in on a vehicle with it's license plate showing, prominently reading 911. With all the mayhem and destruction going on, who would ever have thought that a future American disaster would be called to mind while watching this film today. To be more precise, the actual number on the license plate was 911MMF, but still, it got a reaction out of me just the same.I guess we'll never know if the film makers intended a sequel but you can't fault them for planting a seed at the end of the story. As the picture closes, TV news of dead fish all along the American East Coast are being reported, so that could have been a springboard for a follow up. After all, now they knew how to build those radium tipped atomic warhead torpedoes.

BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER is a British version of the classic GODZILLA story, although it's more closely linked to THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS with whom it shares a director in the Russian-born Frenchman, Eugene Lourie. A youthful Douglas Hickox (THEATRE OF BLOOD) is also credited as co-director in British prints.I always find British monster movies to be a lot of fun and this one is no exception; the cast is full of decent, stiff upper lipped types who instantly band together to tackle whatever great menace is coming their way. And BEHEMOTH THE SEA MONSTER tells a very typical storyline for its era, following a specific template that sees a slow and gradual build-up in the first half lead into some all-out monster action in the second.The film features a likable imported American star in Gene Evans, backed up by some heavyweight British talent in the form of a tough Andre Morell and the likes of Jack MacGowran. Film fans will be delighted to see some brief snippets of stop motion effects contributed by the one and only Willis O'Brien at the tail-end of his career, although a cheesy model also bolsters the action. And I enjoyed the way the action plays out in a particularly grim fashion, with the monster readily offing men, women, and children thanks to that radioactive death ray.

It had been many decades since I last saw "The Giant Behemoth." When I was a kid, I had always grown restless with the film, largely because director/co-screenwriter Eugene Lourie withholds a good, establishing glimpse of the titular creature until the picture is almost 2/3 over; an interminable amount of time for an impatient youth who just wants to see a freakin' monster. As I plopped the DVD in recently, my one thought was, would I be as restless as an adult? "Behemoth," of course, was the second in Lourie's loose dinosaur trilogy. In the first film, 1953's classic, superb, artful and trendsetting "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms," Lourie, with the assistance of stop-motion wizard Ray Harryhausen, and working from a short story by Ray Bradbury, had given to the world the template for all thawed-out-dinosaur flicks to come, including the following year's "Gojira." Fans would have to wait until 1959 for Lourie's "Behemoth" follow-up, and then until 1961 for his much-loved baby boomer favorite, "Gorgo." "Beast From..." has been one of this viewer's very favorite films since elementary school; the greatest dinosaur movie ever made, for my money. And so, again, the question: How would "The Giant Behemoth" strike me as an adult, all these many years later?The film follows much the same story line as had been laid down by "Beast" six years earlier. Due to the effects of hydrogen bomb testing, a nasty, prehistoric monstrosity is released (in "Beast," the "rhedosaurus" is merely thawed out from its hibernation; here, the paleosaurus, an actual extinct animal as opposed to the fictitious rhedosaurus, is awoken and imbued with radioactivity, a la Gojira itself). As in "Beast," the creature initially wreaks havoc amongst coastal communities (primarily the south coast of England, here, as opposed to the Beast's Canadian maritime scourge), and an American scientist investigates. Thus, Steve Karnes (wonderfully played by Gene Evans), who had coincidentally just been giving a lecture on the possibilities of radiation-induced mutations, and the head of a British scientific society, Prof. Bickford (Andre Morell), go to the Cornish village of Looe, where a fisherman had recently been burnt to death by...something, and where thousands of dead fish had washed ashore. And as in "Beast," before long, the prehistoric menace goes on a rampage through a major city (New York in the earlier film; London, as in "Gorgo," in the latter), before our heroes dispose of the marauder by shooting a radioactive missile into it.Good as it is, "The Giant Behemoth," sadly, comes up short in every single department, as compared to the 1953 film. In "Beast," we are treated to the awesome spectacle of the monster, amidst a North Pole blizzard, within the film's first 10 minutes (I always loved that fact as a little kid, and still do); "Behemoth" makes the viewer wait 50 full minutes. "Beast" had given us such marvelous buildup scenes as the rhedosaurus' attack on a fishing trawler, on a lighthouse (beautifully done in nighttime silhouette) and on a bathysphere, whereas "Behemoth" only gives us the sight of several innocents being slain by concentric rings of electrically discharged radiation. The creature that Harryhausen devised for "Beast" is one of his greatest creations; it moves gracefully, seems truly alive, has a personality, and is absolutely terrifying when it looks into the camera. On the other hand, the paleosaurus here, when not being brought to life by a puppet, is a fairly clunky stop-motion creation, despite being the work of King Kong creator Willis O'Brien and a quartet of others. It does not move realistically or gracefully, and is hardly convincing. Wisely, Lourie often keeps his camera in close-up on the Behemoth's snarling mug, a mug that admittedly can engender chills when it also looks straight into the camera. And whereas the Beast's rampage through downtown Manhattan is one of the most exciting sequences in sci-fi history, the Behemoth's carries a distinct aura of deja vu, with too much emphasis on the fleeing populace and not enough on the monster itself. Oh...and the climax of "Beast," the thrilling, flaming cataclysm at the roller coaster, is as awe inspiring as can be (especially when seen on the big screen); the climax of "Behemoth" is nowhere near as spectacular, a bubbling underwater affair in which our monster cannot even be clearly seen. As I said, "Beast" kicks prehistoric butt on "Behemoth" in every single department; it is a genuine work of inspired cinematic art, as opposed to just being an enjoyable monster movie.Still, "Behemoth" does have its selling points. The early sequences in the Cornwall fishing village are very atmospheric, and there is a refreshing lack of a romantic subplot to distract the viewer and our hero. As in "Beast," a nighttime attack sequence, done in silhouette, works marvelously. Here, the Behemoth destroys a trio of electrical towers as it advances right into Lourie's camera. For once, the creature is genuinely intimidating and scary. And if you are wondering whether or not the adult me felt restless during the film's first 50 minutes, as I had as a kid, I will admit that I was not; at least, not overly much. The film IS intelligent and well acted by all, and Evans is immensely likable. Perhaps I would have been more inclined to be generous had I not seen "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" before, and many dozens of times since I was 5 years old. As it is, "The Giant Behemoth" strikes me as being merely fun stuff, and surely outclassed by its older brother....