It’s been a while since I watched a Gamera movie. Not that long in the grand scheme of things, but long enough for me to already forget whether or not I was truly enjoying this era of the giant turtle beast. This film soon reminded me that I found these films to be middling entertainment, at best, and I usually rate them generously because of my innate love for most films of this kind.
The plot is summed up by the title. Gamera is awakened once more, just in time to battle a creature named Gyaos. Gamera is also befriended by a young boy named Eichi (Naoyuki Abe). Meanwhile, there’s some dull b-plot about the building of an expressway.
It’s tough to muster any enthusiasm for this, a kaiju film that has even less human characters worth caring about than usual, and fights that lack any real spectacle. Everything between Gamera and Gyaos is far less exciting than it should be, and there’s never a real sense of proper large-scale destruction.
Director Noriaki Yuasa returns to the series, as does writer Niisan Takahashi, but you wouldn’t know that they had any experience with this kind of material from the end result here. The opening scenes are some of the best, especially when Gamera befriend Eichi, but it’s quite a consistent slide downhill after those moments.
As for the cast, I will continue to single out Abe as the only highlight. His young character is singularly optimistic and cheerful throughout, and his relationship with Gamera works well, even as he spends most of the movie just looking on and being supportive from the sidelines.
Gamera still has one or two good moments of getting to do Gamera things, but the crude design and unimpressive characteristics of Gyaos leave a lot to be desired. It isn’t a memorable creature, and it never feels convincing when it gets the better of Gamera.
I have said all I need to say here. In fact, I have said plenty when I had the option to sum this up in one word: Poor.
3/10
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I think that's one in the Mystery Science Theater collection I own, though it might have been spelled Gaos.
ReplyDeleteThat would fit.
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