Foster on Film – Page 66 – The Film Criticism of Matthew M. Foster

Strange Days (1995)

Oct 051995

Ex-cop Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is a street dealer of the newest illegal drug, human memory tapes. He’s also a user, escaping into his past when he was with punk rocker Faith Justin (Juliette Lewis). As society crumbles around him, he is given a tape of a psychotic killer raping and murdering an old friend and prostitute. Finding himself a target of both the killer, and the LAPD, Lenny, with the help of his only friends, limo driver Mace Mason (Angela Bassett) and brain damaged ex-cop Max Peltier (Tom Sizemore), has to discover what is behind the murder.

Cyberpunk has rarely been used to say more, and what it has to say in Strange Days isn’t very nice. People are vicious, death is random, and the only ones you can trust less than the criminals in the streets are those who are supposed to be protecting you. Inspired by the L.A. riots, Strange Days has a world of racist, stupid police, rap stars as revolutionaries (too bad they know more about gold and prostitutes than about how to make a fair society), crime, and meaningless death. I wish I could say this world wasn’t familiar. The villain (the villain? No, make that one of the many, many villains; it’s heroes that are hard to find.) states the world view late in the film: It’s all falling apart and none of it means anything; you could get murdered at any moment for no good reason. His answer is to take all he can while he can. Mace’s is to do the right thing and take care of those you love. Lenny doesn’t have an answer; he’s a mess.

Written by James Cameron (The Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss), along with reviewer Jay Cocks, Strange Days has Cameron’s fingerprints all over it. It’s long, detailed, character driven, action-packed, and oddly hopeful. Much of that is packed into the characters of Lenny and Mace. Lenny, played to perfection by Fiennes, is a complicated guy, heroic at times but also cowardly. He uses his friends without a thought but does care for them as well. He’s an addict, knows it, and accepts it. I can’t recall a more complete human being in any film. His old love for Faith is the catalyst for much of the films action, but it is his relationship with Mace that keeps it going. Mace, like Van Helsing in the early Dracula films, is the voice of morality and proper action, and as such, has some uninteresting speeches. Being told how to behave is not fascinating. However, in the films most emotional scene, Mace remembers what Lenny was, and how he looked after her child at a crucial moment. Sure, Strange Days will say that love is the answer, but it’s not an easy or simple answer. And it only does so much as the world is a pretty dark place.

There’s a few missteps (like a dog attacking at just the perfect time to save our heroes, Lenny not thinking to copy an important tape, and a crowd which switches from deafeningly noisy, to quiet, to full riot, to peaceful, with supernatural speed) but they take little away from director Kathryn Bigelow’s thinking-person’s masterpiece.

My only complaint was a disregard for the real world. In 1995, it was obvious that the technology of the SQUID, a device that records and plays back memories, was not going to exist in 1999. The change of the millennium is not essential to the story; an unspecified future would have worked better and been less distracting to the audience in the long run.

Cyberpunk, Reviews Tagged with: Four Reels

Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1995)

Oct 051995

A megalomaniac corporate chairman has Jobe (Matt Frewer), miraculously surviving his apparent demise in the first film, solving the last problems with the powerful Chiron chip so that he can take over the world. But Jobe is actually working for himself so that he can become a new messiah. It is left to the creator of the chip (Patrick Bergin) and four kids, including Jobe’s old friend Peter (Austin O’Brien), to stop them both.

It’s hard to decide if only a few years has passed since the events of the two films, and the world has been redecorated by god-like aliens who love noir, or if fifty years have passed and both Jobe and Peter had been put in stasis by a different group of aliens. Peter is just a few years older than he was in Lawnmower Man, which was set in the present, but now there are flying cars and a Blade Runner-like urban cityscape. I guess it doesn’t really matter as all those futuristic images pop up only once or twice, to be replaced by normal cars and underground rail lines. Perhaps an editor accidentally clipped in a few seconds of The Fifth Element when he was low on coffee. It’s a minor problem compared to…everything else.

I learned so much from watching Lawnmower Man 2. I learned that when programmers get upset, they put on the leftover Indian costumes from old John Wayne films and pout in cabins in the middle of the desert. I learned that hooking together all the computers in the world has nothing to do with connecting them to a network, but is just a matter of having the right chip on one computer. I learned that complex computer chips are huge and shaped like a pyramid. I learned that if you have the design for a chip that will give you absolute power, you only make one. I learned the expensive security systems protecting the most important item in the world can be fooled by a piece of ice. Oh, so much to learn.

I also learned that Matt Frewer is a horrible actor. It’s taken awhile for me to see that as I like him in Max Headroom (you’ll have to decide what that says about me), but no good actor could have screeched and mugged for the camera with such sincerity. It was a failure of mythic proportions. But then he was acting alongside Patrick Bergin’s glib, play-shaman, so it’s not like he was lonely in the sludge.

What part of Lawnmower Man 2 stands out beyond the others? Could it be the invisible camera that must be flying next to the helicopter to explain what Jobe is seeing? Could it be the techno-babble virus-worm scene at the library where they do a lot of typing? Could it be the dog putting a disk into the computer? Or the homeless kids running their ultra high-tech computer base from an underground railcar? Or when civilization collapses because Jobe uses ultimate power to have bank machines spit out extra money? Or when it turns out the entire plot of needing the chip’s creator to get the full power from it is tossed aside? Or when the chip’s creator decides to take the kids on a commando mission? No. It’s none of those. The real defining moment is when Jobe becomes a moron, and everyone loves him again, because stupid is good. Oh, the happy scene of the legless, mentally retarded Jobe, the kid, and the rest of the team standing in the sun. All is well in the world (Hmmm, I thought everyone was rioting ten minutes earlier).

Writer/director Farhad Mann, who can be confused by both a keyboard and a camera, and probably a toothpick, has not made a film since. Perhaps he is waiting for forgiveness from the Pope. How many Hail Mary’s should he have to say?

For its video release, they renamed it Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe’s War, because the real problem was the film’s title. Yeh.

Cyberpunk, Reviews Tagged with: Toxic

Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

Oct 051995

Johnny (Keanu Reeves) is a mnemonic smuggler, with an illegal implant in his brain that allows him to store computer data. On his last job, things go terribly wrong and he finds himself hunted by the Yakuza. Worse, he only has twenty-four hours to remove the overload of information from his head before it kills him. His only help comes from Jane (Dina Meyer), a mercenary bodyguard with a debilitating disease, and from the “low-tech underground,” led by J-Bone (Ice-T).

Johnny Mnemonic is the most Cyberpunk of all Cyberpunk movies. Walking through my own definition:

It is based on a short story by the father of Cyberpunk, William Gibson, who also wrote the screenplay.
Johnny is a self-centered, emotionally troubled smuggler chased by the Yakuza.
The world is filled with violent mercenaries, psychopathic hit men, profiteering middlemen, and greedy, sociopathic, corporate executives.
The date is 2021 and corporations in concert with organized crime control society. If you’re not part of that elite world, you live in poverty on the streets.
Computers are everywhere and some, like Johnny, can jack-in. Cybernetic body parts are the norm.
Tech-oriented slang is common, particularly among the “low-tech” street people.
Life is filled with betrayal and defeat.

For all the fancy trimmings, the story is an old one and quite simple at its heart. The protagonist has a thing he must deliver in a set timeframe or he’ll die. Bad guys try to stop him and get the thing. Add in a sidekick and a bit of romance (in the same person), and this film’s been made many times. It’s not a bad story, but don’t let the environment fool you into thinking there’s more here than there is.

But this film isn’t about story; it’s about mood and background. Johnny Mnemonic creates a rich and strangely humorous world. The point is we’re getting too much information in our daily lives and Gibson paints what that internal overload feels like in an external landscape. Everything is loud, hectic, disorganized, and just past our comprehension. Things pop in and disappear again with little explanation or motivation. In our fast-paced world, there’s no time to understand the details. As such, Johnny Mnemonic is a cousin of Alice in Wonderland, with wacky characters doing what they do for reasons that are beyond us.

How well the film plays depends a lot on how interesting the background is and how amusing the characters are. Luckily, most of the sideshow freaks are a good time. Udo Kier (Blade, Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula) has made a living playing androgynous reprobates and as Johnny’s traitorous agent, he’s just over-the-top enough. His transsexual bodyguards are a notch more bizarre, but the winner in pure excess is Dolph Lundgren as the cybernetic Street Preacher assassin. While Kier purrs his lines, Lundgren gleefully proclaims them to the heavens. Henry Rollins uses his punk rock finesse as Spider, a “flesh-mechanic” doctor who is incapable of asking for someone to pass the bread without sarcasm. Add in Denis Akiyama as a Yakuza killer with a monofilament laser weapon in his thumb, and you’ve got yourself more than enough eccentric psychos for an hour and a half.

Takeshi Kitano, as the mastermind of the villains, is not as entertaining as his colleagues, but he works as atmosphere. Apparently, he was cast to satisfy Japanese audiences. The only complete failure is J-Bone, portrayed with one expression and one vocal tone by Ice-T. He never feels like he belongs in this world, and he isn’t funny. He’s drab. It’s too bad as he gets much of the techno-babble that defines Cyberpunk.

Johnny and Jane are our Alice for the trip through the looking glass, and they aren’t exactly normal. Jane is a low self-esteem bodyguard with a huge chip on her shoulder, implants to make her lethal, and a disease. Johnny is a brat who no longer remembers his childhood as he needed that brain space for data storage. In one of the best scenes, Johnny throws a tantrum, screaming out “I want room service…I want a $10,000 a night hooker. I want my shirts laundered like they do at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo.” Don’t we all. Even with their flaws, they are our guides simply because they are the only ones who make sense. Dina Meyers is completely believable, with pain washing across her face when she isn’t angry or lost. As for Reeves, the part fits him perfectly. I have a theory that he is a master thespian in any genre film (using the term broadly) where there is something wrong with his brain or soul (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, I Love You to Death, The Devil’s Advocate, The Matrix) while he reaches new heights of incompetence in any genre film where he’s supposed to be a normal human (Chain Reaction, Speed, Much Ado About Nothing, Dracula). Luckily, Johnny is a stunted human missing a chunk of his mind so Reeves is in great shape.

While Johnny Mnemonic is a film meant to inundate the viewer with the sights and the sounds and the people of an overwhelming universe, it wouldn’t have hurt that goal to spend some effort on the narrative. The climatic battle is far from satisfying.

I’m in the minority in giving a good grade to Johnny Mnemonic. The poor film couldn’t win. Fans of Gibson were upset that it didn’t adhere closer to his short story’s vision. Everyone else was unhappy that it was too Cyberpunk, wanting normal characters instead of representations and getting lost in the slang. The Matrix has changed the vocabulary and if it were released now, Johnny Mnemonic would be mainstream. What a difference a few years make.

Cyberpunk, Reviews Tagged with: Three & 1/2 Reels

While You Were Sleeping (1995)

Oct 041995

After saving Peter Callaghan’s (Peter Gallagher) life—though he still falls into a coma—Lucy (Sandra Bullock) is mistaken for his fiancée. Soon she is an accepted part of his family, but she knows the truth will come out when Peter awakens. Complicating matters, Peter’s brother, Jack (Bill Pullman), is suspicious of Lucy, as well as attracted to her.

Quick Review: When I first saw While You Were Sleeping back in ’95, I knew that I was seeing the star who would dominate romantic comedies for the next decade. Bullock was perfect. She WAS the girl next door, provided the girl next door was sexy and remarkably beautiful. I anticipated film after film where she would charm audiences. So much for my ability to predict the future. But for one film she was sexy, beautiful, and charming. While You Were Sleeping is a ’40s style film (in a good way) set in the 90s. The supporting characters (Peter Gallagher, Peter Boyle, Jack Warden, Glynis Johns) are quirky and funny. Pullman is just romantic enough. The Christmas setting gives it an extra touch of warmth. This is the ideal date film, particularly for the holidays.

Christmas, Christmastime, Reviews Tagged with: Five Reels

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Oct 031995

Michael Myers is back again, seeking his remaining relatives. The now grown Tommy Doyle (Paul Rudd), who was one of the children being babysat when Michael started his killing spree, and Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) try to hide a baby from Michael. But there is another threat; a group of druids are planning a sacrifice.

Quick Review: As I was watching the earlier Halloween films, I was always thinking, “Ah, if there were only a group of druids, then it would be great! And maybe some unexplained cloning!” Actually, the ludicrous additions don’t make the film any sillier than its predecessors, and at least it means there is a plot, even if it doesn’t make sense. The story pauses from time to time so that Michael can kill someone stupid enough to hang out in his old house. Yes, people are wandering in and out of his house; I guess they didn’t watch the earlier films. Loomis still chants to anyone who will listen that Michael is EVIL!! Where did he get his degree? Donald Pleasence died before shooting was finished, which may be a partial excuse for some bizarre plot elements. No, scratch that. There is no excuse. It is a sad end to the career of a talented character actor.

The other films in the series are Halloween, Halloween 2, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Halloween: Resurrection.

Halloween, Reviews, Slashers Tagged with: One Reel

Beavis and Butt-Head Do Christmas (1995)

Oct 031995

Beavis and Butt-head (voice: Mike Judge) watch some videos, read a few letters, and star in two shorts: Huh-Huh-Humbug! and It’s A Miserable Life. In the first, Beavis fantasizes he’s the manager at a burger joint and is visited by three ghosts. In the second, Butt-head is shown what the world would be like if he were never born.

If you don’t know the slackers Beavis and Butt-head, this is as good a place to start as any. But there isn’t any need. Their show was a combination of videos (it was shown on MTV) and vignettes where these two mentally challenged failures giggled a lot about sex and walked around in a world they couldn’t comprehend. It’s funny for a few minutes.

In this Christmas special, the two are stuck into the most popular holiday stories of our times, with far less radical results than I would have expected. Beavis gets the Scrooge role in A Christmas Carol. There needs to be a law that no one can make another version of A Christmas Carol, in any form. Straight versions, comedies, musicals, and sitcom season episodes—it’s everywhere. This variation is an excellent example of why congress needs to get to work on that ban. This is supposed to be a “twisted” take on the story, but it is surprisingly tame. Beavis sits on the couch as the ghosts pop in and show him that his employee is poor. He uses his trademark laugh and isn’t saved. That’s about it.

The second part is better, only because this take on It’s A Wonderful Life is actually warped. The angle come down not to persuade Butt-head that he should live, but rather that the world would be better if he killed himself. Of course he isn’t convinced. The jokes are thin and repetitive, and the segment wore out its welcome long before it was over.

Christmas Shorts, Christmas Shorts, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Richard III (1995)

Oct 031995

In a fictionalized 1930s London, Richard (Ian McKellen) murders his brother (Nigel Hawthorne), his nephews, known enemies, and supposed friends to gain the crown, but finds it hard to keep.

I have no philosophical objection to transplanting Shakespeare to more-or-less modern eras. The problem is that most of the time, if it doesn’t detract from the story, it adds nothing. Here is the exception. Ian McKellen (who worked on the screenplay and executive produced as well as starred) moves Richard III into the 1930s, and it works brilliantly, giving Richard’s Machiavellian intrigues a fresh resonance. The connection between Richard and Hitler has been discussed many times, but McKellen is the first to bring Richard to the screen decked in fascist pageantry. The message is clear: this is our world folks, so you better watch carefully. The costumes parallel the action as World War I uniforms give way to SS jackets. Fascism doesn’t just happen, it is allowed to happen and the art deco sets emphasize the fantasy world of the rich and powerful who fail to see what is going on around them.

The cast is superb, including some of the best England had to offer in 1995 such as Nigel Hawthorne and Maggie Smith. The cutting of Shakespeare’s dialog is severe, making transitions a bit abrupt, but that is the price for excellent pacing. However, it did leave me wanting more.

Reviews, Shakespeare Tagged with: Four Reels

Othello (1995)

Oct 031995

Iago (Kenneth Branagh), seeped in hatred for his commander, Othello (Laurence Fishburne), vows to destroy him and fellow officer Cassio (Nathaniel Parker). Othello has recently married the beautiful, young Desdemona (Irène Jacob), much to the regret of the foolish Roderigo (Michael Maloney), who wanted her for himself. Iago uses Roderigo in his plot to disgrace Cassio, and than persuade Othello that Desdemona is unfaithful.

A powerful and beautiful rendition of the most difficult of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Director Oliver Parker’s Othello hooks into the passion and sensuality of the original work (though not as some claim, the sexuality—there is little flesh on parade and the often commented on love scene is risqué only in the viewer’s mind).

Fishburne is an imposing presence, and I actually believed that Othello could command troops and win a battle. In most productions, Othello is portrayed as an ineffectual fool that could hardly hold an army together. But here, he seems both savage and reasonable—a complex man not completely at home in the society of Venice. He is also, for a change, black. It would seem to be an obvious bit of casting to put a black man in the title role of the Moor (who is specifically described as black) but more often than not, it is a white guy with bad makeup that gets the part.

While the title implies that Othello is the protagonist, it is Iago who motivates the action of the story. Branagh is far from a stranger to Shakespearian films (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Love’s Labour’s Lost), but he tends to play heroes. Here he proves that he is even better as the villain. Branagh’s Iago is smoothly manipulative. This is a man who can tell any lie and still appear like an angel.

Irène Jacob is a less obvious choice for Desdemona since English is not the French-born, Swiss actress’s first language. She’s beautiful, but that should be a secondary consideration after the ability to pronounce the words. It’s distracting to have a character that has a different accent than her father. Luckily, Jacob has little screen time compared to Fishburne and Branagh.

With the exception of that one casting choice, Parker’s decisions are flawless for a faithful cinematic adaptation of the play. His sometimes substantial cuts (as few people want a three hour plus film) retain the poetry without any sacrifice to the story. The cinematography is the best I’ve seen in a straight Shakespearian movie, with colors that sparkle, giving extra life to the story. Costumes, settings, and the emotional score are all first rate. Parker’s done a wonderful job of translating the play to a new medium.

But his failing is that’s all he’s done. He may have filmed the best possible rendition of the standard interpretation of the play, but it is still the standard interpretation. Othello is an awkward work to stage. The story appears farcical, not unlike ones that Shakespeare used for his comedies. Iago can be compared to Don John from Much Ado About Nothing who is evil in a Snidely Whiplash kind of way. And not only Othello, but also Cassio, Roderigo, and Desdemona are stupid beyond the limits of believability. What did Shakespeare intend all this to mean? No one really knows (The Bard didn’t leave much in the way of production notes), so we’re left with directors trying to make sense of it. And Parker doesn’t. Why is Othello so easy to convince of Desdemona’s betrayal? Parker just smiles, and makes Othello jealous and Iago convincing. That’s hardly enough. Why can’t Desdemona see that constantly bringing up Cassio is upsetting her husband? Because she’s cute and innocent. Hmmmm. The questions continue without answers.

This Othello is technically wonderful, but Parker brings nothing new to the table. If you’re already familiar with the play, there’s no fresh insights to be found. There’s a lot to like, but not nearly enough to think about.

I have also reviewed Othello (1965) with Laurence Olivier and The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (1952) with Orson Welles.

Reviews, Shakespeare Tagged with: Three & 1/2 Reels

The Addiction (1995)

Oct 021995

Kathleen (Lili Taylor), a philosophy graduate student, is attacked and bitten by an unknown woman (Annabella Sciorra). She soon develops an addiction to blood, and to the evil that goes with taking it. An older vampire (Christopher Walken) cruelly attempts to teach her how to exist in her new state, holding her hostage and feeding from her. She escapes, with new motivation and insight into evil that allows her to finish her thesis.

I had a double major in mathematics and philosophy as an undergrad, switching from physics because I loved philosophy. I then entered grad school to study philosophy. I read Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre, to name a few. And I found The Addiction’s constant philosophizing pompous and overbearing. God help you if you don’t think reading Nietzsche is a good time (OK, no one really thinks reading Nietzsche is a good time, but some of us put up with it). The Addiction is like a freshman who just took his first one hundred level philosophy class and now wants to impress the senior girls with his newfound depth; he drops a few names, but doesn’t really understand the views and gets most of them wrong.

I can’t fault the b&w cinematography, nor Taylor’s performance. And Walken plays the normal Walken weirdo and that’s always fun. It is the script that fails the project.

Vampirism is used as a metaphor for drug addiction, which in turn is used as a metaphor for evil, and humanity’s “addiction” to it. This is a message movie that missed the ideas of subtext and subtlety. Plot and character are shoved aside to make room for more message. With that emphasis on theme, and all those dead philosophers dug up, I expected something pretty complicated and thought-provoking. And that’s the final failing. For more than an hour, the nature of evil is chewed on and tossed around. So, when all of that is forgotten at the end, I start wondering why I watched any of it. The final, in-your-face message is: man is filled with sin, and only by giving yourself to God can you be free of it. That’s it. OK, that’s fine if that’s what you want to say, but then build to that. Instead, it was just stated, with no connection to the rest of the movie. I could get that on the first page of a thousand Christian newsletters and save myself eighty-two minutes.

Reviews, Vampires Tagged with: One Reel

Hackers (1995)

Oct 021995

A group of teen hackers, including ‘Crash Override’ (Jonny Lee Miller), who had been arrested as a child for breaking into government computers, ‘Acid Burn’ (Angelina Jolie), a girl with a chip on her shoulder, and ‘Cereal Killer’ (Matthew Lillard), the class clown, must band together to stop a corporate computer criminal (Fisher Stevens) who is setting them up.

Quick Review: This is a movie where geeks are cool, everyone travels by skateboard, and data appears on computer screens as a series of video-game-like rotating pictures, even when downloading over phone lines. Nothing is better in life than playing with your computer and sticking it to “The Man.” But in the end, “The Man” is OK with that because teen computer nerds are really the saviors of society. This is what a large corporate filmmaking machine (i.e. “The Man”) figures gen-X slackers dream about. They may be right.

Once I get past the impossibility of the technology, the falsified hacker subculture, and the nonsensical characters, I’m left with a fairly entertaining movie. The pace is good; there is humor in abundance; there is tension and some good chases. And who doesn’t like seeing punk kids (even those who look like models) stick it to “The Man.” Even for a film set in the present (now past), this is true film Cyberpunk .

Cyberpunk, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

Ghost in the Shell “Kôkaku kidôtai” (1995)

Oct 021995

Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg agent in Section 9, and her partner, Batô, track a hacker known as The Puppet Master who can control not only machines, but humans.

A prime example of Cyberpunk, Ghost in the Shell takes place in the near future, and includes robots, cyborgs, computers, huge corporations, untrustworthy governments, and hacking. It is Anime (Japanese animation for the two or three of you who might read this and not know), and while the detail in characters’ faces is low and there are still too many repeated still-frames, for 1995, it looks very good. The plot is complicated and the themes even more so. “Ghosts” are souls or personalities (it is never explained) and shells are bodies (cyborg or human). The question posed by Ghost in the Shell is what does it mean to be human, to be alive? It doesn’t answer, except to say your “shell” doesn’t count. The combat looks good and the characters are interesting and developed (and there is no wide-eyed, unfunny clown character, who leaps up and down, as in so much Anime).

Then there is the talking. These characters talk and talk and talk. If something could be explained by showing it or by talking about it, Ghost in the Shell uses the latter technique. Exposition scenes dominate all others and characters sit or stand, unmoving, for many minutes telling the audience what is going on. Good films manage to convey information while things are happening, as part of the plot. But Ghost in the Shell comes to a grinding halt over and over to supply more chatting. It’s got to be a lot cheaper to animate than having characters do things. There’s so much that’s done right; it’s a shame that director Mamoru Oshî and writer Kazunori Itô forgot such a basic rule of storytelling.

Cyberpunk, Foreign Language, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995)

Apr 021995

Lieutenant Yoshinari Yonemori is part of a plutonium transport sea convoy that runs into an atoll. Overwhelmed by the near disaster, he pushes his way onto the insurance investigator’s team that’s trying to determine what happened. Meanwhile, zoologist and all-around science expert Dr. Mayumi Nagamine is pulled in by Police Inspector Osako to investigate deaths on an island. They discover giant dragon-like reptiles flying in the region which they later call gyaos. The two investigations intersect, with Gamera appearing to fight the gyaos, and the investigator’s teenage daughter, Asagi, ending up with a pendant that binds her Gamera.

It’s too bad that the title gives away that this is a Gamera film as there’s some nicely built up suspense around the mysterious atoll. But even knowing what’s coming, the detective portion of the film works well and introduces us to our human cast of likable characters that almost make a difference (this is still a Japanese monster movie, so the humans don’t really matter, but for a change they don’t just stand around looking at screens and narrating what is happening).

Nagamine makes for a strong female lead and Yonemori is noble without going overboard. And the switch from the old Gamera films where you’d have cheering prepubescent “Kenny” children connected to Gamera to a teenage priestess makes all the difference, and raises the stakes since she suffers when Gamera does.

The mythology alone makes this film work better than so many others in its genre. Gamera is a gyaos killer. That’s what he is made for. He doesn’t have to be intelligent or noble and figure anything out (he’s a turtle after all, so deduction should not be in his skill set). He was made to kill gyaos and that’s what he does.

By US blockbuster standards, the effects don’t shine. This is men in suits (and for the first time, a woman in the Gyaos suit), puppets, and miniatures after all, but for Japanese giant monster movies, this is the gold standard. Here and there, the FX took me out of the film—the young gyaos’s randomly moving pupils and the animation of a high flying battle—but generally I liked the look of it.

If you dislike big monsters duking it out, or suit-mation, then Gamera: Guardian of the Universe isn’t for you, but if you have even a mild interest in the genre, this is the one to see.

Foreign Language, Giant Monsters, Reviews Tagged with: Four Reels

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