Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

Still my favorite. Every time I watch this trilogy, I keep getting so excited over each movie that I have to reconsider which is my favorite but then when we finally get to three, nope, still the king, baby. To be fair, it's my favorite partially BECAUSE the other two films precede it and it handles the continuity in some really cool ways. After the huge scope of the last movie, I really love how they refocused this one on a much more personal story, despite the apocalyptic things that still surround it. I think it's fantastic when these kinds of plots are at the forefront of kaiju films. The original Godzilla and Gamera the Brave both do it to great effect as well and it's something I'm looking to do for an upcoming film of my own that I'm developing (which the Toho Kingdom crowd will probably hate ). I also still have zero issues with this film's ambiguities. I think they make for fascinating puzzles, not unlike the many unanswered questions posed by Prometheus. I like that we're given a bunch of world building that we're left to our own devices to figure out. Sue me. XD

As for the effects, I don't think I need to say much more than:

I like this film quite a bit. I find the cinematography to be quite good. Some of the images in this film are just plain beautiful to watch....

The scene where Gamera fights the Gyaos is freaking jaw-dropping and has now become one of my favorite scenes in anything ever. My jaw hit the floor and I was completely shocked and, to be honest, kinda scared at the carnage and chaos. It really showed that Gamera had changed since the last film.

Saw the blu-ray the other day, and it had been a while since I last viewed this movie. Probably enjoyed it more this time around than I had in the past. However, I still think it is the least of the three.

Great action. Great looking monsters. Spectacular effects. And it was good to see some of the characters from the first movie return for this one. Yet, with all of that, it was still too much mysticism for me to handle. And the Shin'ya Kurata character, for me, really didn’t serve any interest other than just being weird (and a dull weird at that). Iris was an interesting looking monster, but I would have preferred this movie to be about the Gyaos instead. Much more interesting angle there (but I guess they didn’t want another 95 film on their hands).

In the end though, this film was still better than any of the Godzilla beam war movies of the 1990s (with Biollante being that one exception).

This movie has a legion (pun intended) of problems. I know this isn't "Advent of Legion" but one of the biggest problems this film has is the specter of a far greater film hanging over it, making every misstep look all the worse because the previous film had set this one up so well, and it failed to deliver and live up to G2 (or even GOTU, but that doesn't work for my pun).

Why does Gamera decide to shoot off his own hand instead of Iris's?
Why make Gamera so ruthless and violent if they aren't going to give us a REASON why he turns it around and suddenly nobody is afraid of him running amok anymore?
Why bring all the Mana stuff into this if there's absolutely no resolution to it?
Why bother with all this "guardian of the Ryuseicho" stuff if Gamera just takes care of it all anyway?
What the hell is the crazy chick talking about with like 95% of her lines?
Why couldn't they kill off the crazy chick and video game guy earlier so that the worst part of the movie could be over and done with?
Why bother with all the jewels stuff? There's really no payoff to this either.

This film only really wins me over through its effects and Asagi and Nagamine. It's the third best film in this series, and that only stands out MORE when you watch all three within 24 hours. Yeah, it's got better effects, but it doesn't hang together as a MOVIE and a STORY anywhere near as well as either of the first two.

The one regret I have on t his film is that I would have liked to have seen some sweet iris on gyaos action.

Looking at jelly's complaints, and I mostly disagree: I think the plot and characters in G3 tend to hold up and hold together family well (although some plot points may warrant further clarification), it's just that for me the story and characters aren't quite as enjoyable as the ones in the other two films. I don't mean to badmouth it, as I do like the movie. G3 is a masterwork of traditional effects kaiju movie making that may never be surpassed in terms of realism as well as a smart trilogy ender that connects the themes from the previous films, takes things to an interesting climax, and then leaves the whole thing open ended in a way I find pretty cool.

Part of it may just be personal preferences: G1 and G2 lean heavily on classic genre tropes that I adore, while G3 leans on a lot of then-modern Japanese trends like anime and J-horror. Nothing against those things, it's just my loyalties are more earned by the former.