It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Middling, talk-filled giant monster movie in which US Naval officers are attacked and eaten by giant sea slugs that have evolved as a result of atomic testing (what else?). I'm sure even the most patient of movie-viewers will have a tough time sitting through this endless movie, in which the eighty minutes feel like double that. The main problem is that, while the monsters themselves are pretty darned cool, there's just so damned little of them in the movie that it makes you wonder why they bothered! I would estimate that the monsters appear for approximately 10% of the movie with the rest being packed with dialogue and slow investigation.Another of the problems is that the characters are so unlikeable, the typical stuffy military types who tend to display no personality at all in their actions. Tim Holt is the most characterised of the lot but even he comes across as a grumpy, occasionally stupid hero, definitely not someone to root for. The female characters are dated and subservient, either acting as love interests or victims in the movie. There's also an annoying little brat who deserves to get eaten but inevitably doesn't. The film does have some things to recommend it. These include the corpses which have hilarious rubber faces with ping pong eyes and a couple of quickly minor characters who are more interesting than the leads. One is a mortician who keeps his sandwiches in a morgue freezer, the other a local librarian who talks like Boris Karloff. Also keep an eye out for the first victim of the monster (which we see in shadow), and his incredible unbelievable wooden acting (he says - not screams - "ahh, ahh!" as the monster gets him!).The scenes with the giant sea slugs are generally a lot of fun, in that tacky '50s way. Although they can't move they are pretty well animated and look hilarious (and kind of cute - it's gruesome when one of them gets its eyeball popped out!). Some of the underwater scenes do develop a sense of tension with the hidden monsters but most are too murky to enjoy. The ending, with a giant slug loose in the laboratory, is however classic stuff and a riot (the hero uses a fire extinguisher to subdue it before the firing squad arrive!). There's also a presentation on snails which will tell you some interesting facts about our mollusc friends. Unfortunately, the major part of this film is all about wining and dining, official procedure, and boring people with their boring lives - definitely not a movie in which pacing is a strong point. Watchable but only as a last resort (i.e. there's nothing else on).

THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD may indeed move "at a snail's pace," but the payoff- the Giant Slug- is well worth the wait. I've been to "haunted houses" put together by movie industry professionals and very, very few (if ANY) of the Giant Monsters they concocted measure up to this guy. Not only does this guy LOOK like a Monster- imagine waking up to find this thing looming over you-, it's remarkably AGILE for a MECHANICAL Monster (as opposed to a stop-motion Creature that could "move around" more). Those weaned on commercial Television, with its constant, never-ending mood-breaking interruptions, may find the pace unbearably slow, but more PATIENT viewers won't mind the slow going. (For some of us, slower scenes offer us the opportunity to pick up a book and READ a couple of pages before the histrionics resume.)

My scale for movies sometimes is affected by issues such as whether the movie has aged well/how well it holds up, how good it is ranked against other movies in its genre and time, and whether the movie gives me any excuse at all to enjoy it.On that scale, "Monster" isn't quite the classic as "Them!", but compares favorably to "Tarantula" (with Leo Carrol), and it beats the heck out of almost everything Corman and his studio has ever directed or produced.Sure, it's a little cheesy in spots, the lead role is pure cardboard (leavened with a bit of humanity here and there, and this is really how an official for "Navy Intelligence" might act)...and some of the other acting may leave something to be desired, but the director knows how to keep things moving, actors like Hans Conried manage to deliver a metric ton of exposition without faltering or dragging the movie down, the women are cute and adorable, the men are stalwart and heroic, and the scenario is an interesting one.The title turns out to be a bit of a misnomer, since the original monster is dispatched rather easily, but his brothers and descendants turn out to be the real problem, and I quite enjoyed some scenes that might have been boring and stupid in the hands of a lesser crew.Unjustly overlooked, seemingly forgotten, but worth your time to watch if you enjoy this sort of thing.

The monster that challenged the world! You can tell from the title alone that this is a very cheesy B&W monster movie. You will probably assume that it has a clunky story, boring characters, lame monster design and very cheap effects.Well, yes and no. This movie isn't as bad as I first thought it would be. It has that classic charm from most movies of it's time.Let's break down the elements of the film one by one.To explain the story in a nutshell, it's about a giant mollusk-type creature emerging from a lake after an earthquake, terrorizing the countryside. It's up to a handful of people to stop this creature.The acting: it was quite good actually. It's always a little tricky to act 'serious' when you face a giant fabricated monster, but they did a nice job in this movie. I didn't find any major inconsistencies in the plot or dialogs, which is nice. There are of course always some scenes in a movie like this that look pretty bad, but there weren't many in this film. In overall, I couldn't really complain about the characters.What is there to say about the music? It's just a classic, standard score that fits a movie like this just fine.The monster is quite original for a change. Sure, nowadays it may look silly or even unbelievably cheesy, but you got to have an open mind for films like these. I thought the monster was well-done and actually looks a little intimidating in some scenes. Not bad guys.What else is there worth mentioning? Well, if I have to name one point of critique, it would have to be the underwater scenes. A lot of shots are re-used and sometimes it doesn't look very realistic. Maybe it was done on purpose, but it just looks a bit messy.The monster that challenged the world is really not that bad. If you are a fan of B&W monster movies, then this one is a must for your collection. 7 out of 10 stars!