Having finally seen Gamera 1 & 3 I feel the need to voice my opinion on these movies for the benefit of those who have been bombarded with the oft repeated 'best kaiju film ever' slogan which Gamera fans can be found chanting on several Godzilla boards. This sort of remark deserves investigation, but the added loathing these fans seem to have for many of the Godzilla films (as though we must all be weaned off Godzilla before we can understand Gamera) begs for the objective review of these films, or at least something with more substance than 'Gamera is cool / Gamera sucks.'

I will admit that from the start, Gamera had a lot to work against. Too much praise always puts a lot of expectations in a viewer's head, but I feel that even without this initial disadvantage Gamera was disappointing. The films suffered from various problems, or did not live up to the dizzying heights proclaimed by Gamera fans. I will try to list as many of the problems as I can here.

Poor monster definition-this is mostly a problem in Gamera 1. I am really amazed that while Godzilla is basically a big gray monster, he is pretty well defined. Gamera looked like a big gray-green blob in Gam1. Not really a big deal, but Gamera is less than stunning visually in the first one.

Lack of monster depth-what I am referring to here is 'personality'. I hope that no one reading this will try to counter-argue that Godzilla has no personality. C'mon, G is the ultimate bad ass, and the Heisei films do a fantastic job at giving G a fantastic range of expressions (mostly being various degrees of anger though!) Gamera has as much personality as MechaGodzilla, maybe less so. This to me is a far more important point as I find I really don't care much whether Gamera wins or not, actually sometimes I find myself rooting against him/her/it. Part of Godzilla's endurance over nearly half a century is due to the monster actually taking on some personality, something which Gamera seems to have failed at.

Lack of monster theme music-unlike Godzilla, Gamera doesn't have his own theme (perhaps this is good since no one wants his old theme music back), and this seriously cripples the excitement of Gamera's entrance. Not enough credit is given to the use of Ifikube's excellent themes and their amplification of the monster's power. That absence in these films was very felt and thwarted much of the energy one gets from a G film.

Lack of climactic battles-both Gam1 and Gam3 were for me anticlimactic. The final battles being unspectacular. I felt robbed. Nonetheless there were great scenes. In Gam3 there is a scene where Gamera is going kind of crazy and shooting fireballs at everything and kills 20 thousand people. This scene was far more exciting than the final scene which was relatively disappointing (short of Gamera blasting his own hand off). Also in Gam1, Gamera wins just by throwing a somewhat stronger fireball that blows up Gaos. Like Gam3, there are earlier scenes which are far better (I.E. Gamera bitch-slapping a small Gaos).

CGI Overkill (Gamera 3 only)-this seems to be where much of the contention lies. While some of the CGI was used to great effect (again, the battle in the city about midway through the movie), it more often than not was just distracting eye-candy. For example, can anyone actually draw what the adult Iris looked like? I felt like I was watching The Phantom Menace in parts instead of a Kaiju film. Other parts like the aerial battle between Gamera and Iris are so busy that one can't even tell what is going on. I realize that for many people this is the ideal direction of modern cinema, but there are some like myself who don't feel this really serves the movie at all.

Problems with identity-One of my biggest problems with Gam1 & 3 are their confused identities. Gam1 is less problematic as it seems not too far from the new Mothra films, that is, basically something I would feel comfortable showing children (though probably older children). Gam1 is definitely not a brainy movie and it sticks to monster formula fairly well. Gamera 3 however is an entirely different can of worms. In tone it seems about equivalent to the stupidly grim War of the Worlds TV series, while in content seems to be a weird homage to Legend of the Overfiend (the tentacle sex scene is very hard to ignore, the final version of Iris looks like the 'father of the god of chaos' monster, and I don't even want to discuss what the baby Iris looks like.) Who this film was made for is beyond me. I appreciate their efforts to make a darker and more serious Kaiju film, but I think what they have made with Gam3 is a film that is hardly a Kaiju film at all; becoming indistinguishable from other film genres. This is probably my single greatest difficulty with the Gamera movies.

Problems with plot-I've tagged this on because of all the Toho bashing, and citing the Gamera movies as having good and well thought out plots. I guess I must have missed them. Actually these seemed like the same rehashed Kaiju plots that have been coming back to the screen over and over since the Kaiju film first reared its terrifying head and let a long resounding 'schroooooonk!' The difference I believe is that the plots here were disguised in a thick coat of boredom. Gamera 3 is ridiculously tedious, and Gam1 is only slightly better. I think if there is a difference between this and Toho plots, it is that Toho gets carried away, making mistakes that are very obvious and often laughable (I.E. the 'aliens' homage in Destroyer), while with Gamera the errors seems to have been smoothed into the woodwork such that instead of just one or two embarrassing scenes, we're feeding on it for the entire length of the movie. Other problems with the plots in general seem to revolve around their tendency to be overly geeky (again, this seemed to be used to obscure the unoriginality of the plots) and pretentious. Now I am saying this as one who often enjoys pretentious films but I did not appreciate Gam3's take at all which consisted of the one-two punch: disguise weak plot by talking biology 101 for 5 minutes, then assume they've gone over the heads of the audience. If you find this insulting, you're not alone. This isn't to say that Godzilla movies have great plot (what? Plot in a G movie?), but they are enjoyable and don't seem to take this pretentious and even condescending tone with the audience. I guess I'm too stupid to understand the Gamera universe.

Problems with characters-None of the characters were memorable or interesting. Not that many Kaiju movies have really great characters, but the characters here are LESS interesting than most of the Godzilla movies that come to mind (especially the Heisei series which has many colorful characters). Given that Gamera was supposed to focus more on people, it would have been nice if the people were interesting.

Problems with humor-there was none. Gamera needs to take itself a lot less seriously, or at least try to find someway to give the audience a foot hold as they try to take the Kaiju form in new directions. To me, Destoryer and Godzilla (1954) have plenty of little humorous bits even though they are serious films. The combination of a little humor, memorable characters, a monster that can be empathized with, and good theme music is worth a lot more than the improved special effects in Gam3. I think I could be a lot more forgiving if they were not so incredibly serious.

Overall: The reason I've written all this is to show that at least to a few fans, Gamera is not the ultimate new direction for Kaiju movies and many of us would be disappointed to see more and more films take this direction. Gamera 3 especially felt like a very slick and souless movie. And as to this later film, I must say that I did not only dislike it as a Kaiju film but disliked the film as a whole, actually preferring the rather stunted first attempt. Ultimately I feel at a loss in knowing why this has been dubbed the ultimate Kaiju movies (thanks Dr. Asimov!). Is it because of the improved special effects? or is it simply because of a difference in tastes (Gamera feeling more and more like a big budget hollywood movie, abandoning all the quaint trademarks of a Japanese film)? I don't really want to second guess the fans but I found these movies completely without charm or warmth and won't be surprised at all if in ten years people have completely forgotten about these films. Godzilla though is staying for good.

Thanks Chris! If you would like to submit a review, drop me a line at gleep9@hotmail.com. Now ride that flying turtle back to either the Second Movie or Main pages.
[Editor's Note: I know that I have an entire section of this page dedicated to a giant movie monster where this review might seem more appropriate, but that section is dedicated to a specific monster and the film world he dwells in, not any old rubber critter that wades into Tokyo.]

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