Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Patrick Stinson's (a.k.a. Anguirus) Gamera trilogy reviews.

Anguirus’ Review of Gamera: Guardian of the Universe


OK, first off readers, everyone bow your heads and say THANK YOU to ADV for giving these fine movies such a great release! It is thanks to ADV that I was able to see all of these fine films, and let me tell you, they are worth it! Buy the DVDs, all of them. The more money ADV makes, the more fine releases they can…er…release. And there is the fact that all of them are just kick-ass good. Now, to…


Dinner! You know, if they can eat cows, why do they bother eating humans?...never mind.

The Review

OK, you should know the plot fairly well if you are actually reading this review. Besides, poor ShadowFox ( Edit: Me, the owner of this site) is doing those. So I’ll skip to the good stuff. At its heart, this is a story about a gigantic flying turtle saving the human race from pterosaur-like beam-spitting apocalypse monsters. It is just scary how life-like and realistic a movie Shusuke Kaneko has made with this basic premise. The government, the citizens, and the media react just as you would expect they would in our world if giant monsters suddenly appeared. The movie just feels more realistic and down-to-earth than any Godzilla film. This movie’s crew manages to make Gamera, a third-rate Godzilla ripoff if ever there was one, seem one of the coolest monsters ever created. I went into this movie having seen only one Gamera film before it, Gamera vs. Guiron. Seeing Gamera fly for the first time in this one inspired a gasp. Again, the filmmakers make the ludicrous (a rocket propelled turtle…) look extremely cool. The use of CGI is quite good, especially for a film made in 1995 with a shoestring budget. Gamera’s fireballs look awesome, a stroke of genius, considering his old flamethrower weapon was less than impressive. Aside from the spectacle, the movie has consistently compelling characters, a smart storyline that never drags, the best possible balance and coordination between human and monster action…this is Kaiju-vana, make no mistake. The characters are all superb and bounce off each other well, and the concept of Asagi receiving Gamera’s wounds was quite creative. Even my father, certainly a non-monster fan, liked this one. Add that to the terrific score of Ko Otani and this is a film you can watch again and again.


Gamera vs. Gyaos: Non-sucky version!

The Pros:

  • The music.
  • The characters.
  • The plot (Rewriting Gamera’s origin was a good move).
  • The Gamera suit.
  • The revamped Gyaos design.
  • The SFX. Thank you Shinji Higuchi!
  • The fact that the military managed to DO something!
  • The realism and serious atmosphere.
  • The cameos. (Kojiro Hongo and Akira Kubo are the boat captains in the beginning).

    The Cons:

  • Some of the Gyaos puppets.
  • A bit too much whining about plutonium…

    The Rating: 9.5

    The Chart

    Gamera Suit: 7.5
    I loved the new Gamera suit, but it looked awkward at some angles.

    Gamera’s Entrance: 8

    Rises from the harbor, terrifies a pilot, kills a Gyaos in one blow, and shakes like a sleepy bear, allowing the remains of the atoll to slide off his back. Sweet.

    Enemy Monster: 6
    The Gyaos were designed well, but execution just wasn’t that great.

    Music: 9.5
    Best this side of Ifukube. I hum Otani’s Gamera theme to myself all the time.

    Destruction: 4
    A few buildings here and there in Fukuoka and Tokyo, that’s it. The Tokyo Tower sequence bumps this up an entire point.

    Gore: 6
    Not for young’uns. Gyaos are killed in various nasty ways, humans are chomped by Gyaos, and Gamera gets a few green-bleeding wounds.

    Characters: 8
    All of them were excellent, especially for a kaiju film. The Gamera films are the only ones I never fast-forward through, as even the talking heads are interesting and relevant.

    Human interaction: 7
    Quite good with the smaller Gyaos and Asagi’s link to Gamera, but degenerated into “follow the monsters with a helicopter!”


    Big bird = big turd!

    All ratings out of ten.
    This review was brought to you by Patrick Stinson.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Anguirus’ Review of Gamera 2: Advent of Legion


    I just saw this for the first time recently on the new DVD. This is a hell of an action-packed ride! It isn’t the best of the series, but it is easily the most exciting. On to…


    A face only a mother could love.

    The Review

    Kaneko picks up where he left off in G1 and introduces an alien invader to the series. Apparently, Gamera’s appearance desensitized the public, as no one seems to note that this is the first extraterrestrial life ever found. Hell, in 1996 they weren’t sure if extrasolar planets existed, did they? Anyway, they just can’t leave well enough alone sneaking into factories and eating the silicon (read: beer bottles), but they’ve got to wreck cities and kill people with cell phones, too. Actually, the Legion is an amazing monster, extremely well-thought out, and the slow revealing of its mysteries and habits is a significant thrust of the film. Even more astonishing, the lengthy conversation scene where the characters finally figure out just what is motivating the Legion ISN’T BORING. Be that as it may, most of the characters are fairly bland, with the exceptions of Colonel Watarase and the returning characters from the first film. As a matter of fact, even Ayako Fujitani as Asagi seemed to be sleepwalking through most of this one. However, I did love Honami’s dad. It’s the little things that lift this movie up and keep a smile on your face, like the glimpse of a book on the Gyaos written by Nagamine from the last film, or of a brief look at the Tokyo Tower’s reconstruction. Kaneko clearly rejects the Godzilla movies’ tenuous continuity, taking the first steps to put together an expansive, realistic world. Man, have I even mentioned Gamera yet? He looks stunning, his suit is the best he has ever looked. The only thing I didn’t like was Gamera’s new ability to turn his arms into fins to fly. They can’t possibly give him lift, and the overall effect is kind of silly. Even for Gamera. I mentioned before that Legion is an inspired, fearsome creation. The ending kind of falls flat though, and is only saved by what G3 did with it. Gamera shoots a new giant beam, everyone’s happy, and then Honami is suddenly back in the city warning that Gamera might turn on humanity. However, some of the camerawork is just inspired. There are incredible, poetic shots of a battered Gamera and of the results of Gamera’s ultimate attack. The miniature work is astonishing, worlds above the somewhat lackluster G1 buildings. Here, we are given shots like individual bricks falling off an apartment building as the residents cower within. The SFX reeks of awesomeness. Overall, a thrilling entry in the Gamera series and a great movie to watch if you want to see destruction on an Independence Day level while still having a great plot.


    It slices, it dices, it makes Gamera fries!.

    The Pros:

  • Gamera’s new look. Yeah, baby!
  • The Legion. I mean, damn.
  • The music.
  • The effects.
  • The ADV outtakes (Funny stuff!)
  • The miniatures.
  • The cinematography.
  • The realism and seriousness (love the fake New York Times news headlines).
  • The teaming of Gamera with the military.

    The Cons:

  • The ending. (It wasn’t too bad, but a bit of a letdown.)
  • A few cringe-worthy shots of the little Legions “attacking” soldiers (that or dancing with ‘em maybe?)
  • The characters. They weren’t terrible, in fact quite good for a kaiju flick, but a step down from G1.

    The Rating: 9

    The Chart

    Gamera Suit: 9
    The quintessential Gamera.


    Oh, CRAP! The suit shows off its excellent facial expressions right before being pulverized.

    Gamera’s Entrance: 10
    My god! Spinning underwater with dolphins swiming near the surface, rising to the surface, and exploding upward, with sound effects to make a man weep and scaring another poor chopper pilot. Uber-cool.

    Enemy Monster: 8
    Aside from a couple shots where Legion walks awkwardly, design and execution of this bad-ass bug-thing are superb.

    Music: 8.5
    Excellent as always, but where’s that catchy Gamera theme?

    Destruction: 9.5
    Sapporo gets a few buildings stomped, but Sendai is LEVELED. One big blast. Only the fact that you don’t see that much of it keeps this from a ten.

    Gore: 8
    Human brained by Legion soldier, very graphically. Gamera is impaled something like 50 times. Good thing Asagi’s link was severed!

    Characters: 6
    They all had interesting things to say, but I couldn’t connect with any of them aside from Watarase.

    Human interaction: 6
    Aside from a few “Aliens” type bug hunts and a tension-filled chopper escape, the humans stay away from the kaiju. Very smart, I would think.


    RUN AWAY!!!

    All ratings out of ten.
    This review was brought to you by Patrick Stinson.
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Anguirus’ Review of
    Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris | Incomplete struggle


    This is the hands down best kaiju film of recent years. It is only surpassed by the original Gojira from 1954. The special effects and the story come together and the result is a true movie-watching experience.


    Take THAT Rodan!

    The Review
    Where to begin? Start to finish, this is one intense movie. Right at the beginning, we are greeting by two returning characters from G1: Nagamine… and Gyaos. This is a sign of the trilogy’s coming full circle. The drama in this film, far from filler, is the driving force: each human and kaiju is a character, rather than the humans running and the monsters smashing. First off, the special effects just blow G2’s excellent effects away. In fact, the movie looks so much better than the American travesty of 1998, and it was done for so little, that it is embarrassing. Kaneko and Higuchi have set a new standard for kaiju films. Overall, the goal that G3 sets and succeeds is being, not a “kaiju film,” but a film. The whole time I was watching this movie, I was sucked right in. From the opening revelations to Ayana’s intense flashbacks to the astounding Shibuya sequence and the return of every one of my favorite characters from G1, it keeps your interest the whole time without fail. If it falters, it does so only with the pseudo-religious weirdos that eventually enter the story, Asakura and Kurata. Their dialogue is so far removed from the realism of the rest of the film that it is jarring (though Kurata succeeds very well in being creepy). Gamera is, for the first time in a long time, a menacing and genuinely scary figure. Two of my very favorite scenes have little to do with monsters, when Nagamine encounters Osako living on the street selling papers, and when she convinces him later to investigate the destroyed village with her. The scenes are genuinely moving and everything ties together and falls into place. The final scenes with Gamera and Iris have as much to do with the human characters as the monsters, and the monster action that was in the movie was so well-executed and exciting that I hardly noticed that there really wasn’t that much of it! The finale is intense and emotional, with Iris representing Ayana’s misguided hatred as the other characters try to calm her. Hence, a battle both physical and emotional is fought. The finale is just breathtaking, both in Iris’ spectacular end and Gamera’s final stand again the Gyaos. The general’s answer to the question, “How many Gyaos are there?” “Lots,” was darkly hilarious. If you are looking for an action fix, just watch the Shibuya, air battle, and final battle chapters. If you are looking for a hell of a movie, just watch.

    The Pros:

  • The characters and drama.
  • The music.
  • The effects.
  • The cinematography.
  • The new CG Gyaos.
  • The Gamera suit.
  • Iris.
  • The ending!
  • The realism and genuine suspense, fueled by the newscasts.


    OUCH! ... I wish I didn't destroy that 1 single building back in 1995

    The cons:

  • None. Well, OK, if you are a real monster nerd and care ONLY about the battles and kaiju screen time, there isn’t much here. But even that isn’t a drawback, as effects, kaiju-wise, don’t get better.

    The Rating: 10

    The Chart

    Gamera Suit: 8
    Extremely bad-ass and cool looking, however the neck was too long (especially in the front view) and the Mohawk-thing he’s got is a little too noticeable.

    Gamera’s Entrance: 9.5
    The Shibuya sequence must be seen to be believed.

    Enemy Monster: 9
    The Hyper Gyaos are the best-realized enemies yet. Their CGI flight intercuts perfectly with the prop-heads. Iris is very creative and menacing. He is one nasty bladed villain. You just know Gamera is going to get stabbed a bunch by this guy. And his energy-sucking” power was great.

    Music: 9.5
    Otani outdoes himself. The music is dramatic and powerful, with some very dramatic renditions and variations of Gamera’s theme.

    Destruction: 9.5
    See what I wrote for Gamera’s entrance. Kyoto is pretty wrecked too.

    Gore: 9.5
    Gamera does his impression of the High Priest from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And he bleeds a lot. And gets impaled more, which is apparently his talent. Awesome close up shots of a damaged Hyper Gyaos after Gamera burns it with his plasma ball. You can even see the eye hanging out of it's socket! Gamera ripping into Iris' stomach... Gamera severing his hand off... Humans flying up into a huge fire ball in Shibuya... it's everything you want and more!

    Characters: 9.5
    All my favorite characters were back! Also, Asagi, her family, and Moribe were great! The acting was overall top-notch.


    Oh Iris... I'm so hot! Hold me!

    Human interaction: 10
    The little humans had plenty (others would say too much) to do, and the final battle involves the people just as much as the monsters.

    All ratings out of ten.
    This review by Patrick Stinson is brought to you by the annual support of viewers like you. *holds out hand*.

    Back to reviews