At long last, after a month and a half my Kaiju-athon comes to an end, but instead of going out with a bang, it goes out on a whimper, kind of.
I am mixed on my feelings of this movie to a great extent. I love the opening bit, with Gamera fighting the Gyaos. It harkens to the Heisei series, while giving it its own identity. The costume used for Gamera is well done, looks great, and he looks down right nasty, the way a monster should look. Even the Gyaos look mean, in act, I kind of like their look more than I did in the Heisei series. Everthing in this opening bit is well done, and then the story shifts into 2006, which is pretty cool. We get to see the kid from the beginning grown up with his own son. A very interesting take, but then it starts going downhill from there. There is just way too much focus on Toru, and I really do not like him. He seems to be more of a selfish spoiled brat who does not care what others think of him and goes out of his way to be disobedient. Then he finds the egg and the antics really take off. Yes, there is some fun with the movie, as I love the part when baby Gamera is flying and the girl opens up her window and screams. Her face during that scene is just priceless, but for the most part, I felt the comedy was too over the top.
Now granted, I guess that was the point, as it is quite obvious they are making this a kid's movie, so from that perspective, it works. They did a great job on it. From my perspective, coming off of Iris, this movie is just awful. Gamera looks absolutely ridiculous. What happened to the Gamera at the beginning of the movie? This is just goofy, his face, his eyes, and most of all, his tusks. They are so puny, and he never roars like Gamera. Zedus, on the other hand, is very cool looking, has distinguinshing features, and you can tell he is an evil monster. He looks threatening. With Gamera though, I would be more inclined to pet him than run away in terror. It's like Minilla and Gamera had a love child and this is what came out. I do not like it.
The part with all of the chidren runnng around to bring Gamera the stone is really stupid. Are people truly so inclined for their own safety that they are going to let all of these kids run right past them without a thought? If that is the case, then why is Gamera saving this worthless knuckleheads? The only one worth a damn is the cop, who actually does stuff. Lastly, I absolutely hate the part when Toru goes to give Gamera the stone and gives him like a 20 minute speech. All I kept waiting for was Gamera to shout, "Hey kid, can you not see I'm dying here? I'm not going to blow myself up, so just give me the god damn stone already!"
Overall, the movie is not terrible, the effects are well done, and the movie accomplishes what it set out to do, make a child friendly dumbed down Gamera movie. It does not work for me though, but if it works for you, great on you. I just feel it insults the interlligence of its audiences whether they are 12 or 40.
With that said, my Kaiju-athon is "officially" over, and despite my misgivings and horror of some of the movies, it was great to watch them all in such a little amount of time. On the other hand, I feel like I have watched so many movies I do not want to watch another for the rest of the year. However, that is not going to happen, as I still have three MSTK Gamera movies to watch.