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SXG's Movie Reviews: Gamera the Brave
15 years ago
Slowly coming back to a semblance of normalcy, and thus bringing a brand spanking new kaiju movie review for you all.
With Shusuke Kaneko's departure from the 90's Gamera series, a huge void has been left that Daiei has tried to fill with this most recent outing, that brings their giant turbo-charged terrapin into the 21st Century. Like Godzilla's foray in the new millenium, Gamera begins with a clean slate that ignores all the previous movies, yet borrows aspects from them.
How is the movie?? How does it stack up to it's predacessors? Well I shall answer that in depth.
-Gamera the Brave- (2006)
-Story: Our movie begins in 1973, and a chaotic battle is nearing it's end. The giant monster Gamera is battling several of the dreaded Gyaos monsters, and from the looks of things... the giant turtle is steadily losing the fight. In a last ditch attempt to destroy his enemies utterly, as well as save the village they were attacking, Gamera self-destructs... taking the flying monstrosities with him. Watching from afar is a young boy, one of the survivors of the Gyaos attack.
About thirty or so years later, and the little boy has grown up to have a child of his own, named Toru. Sadly, Toru's mother recently died in a car-crash, and seems to be having trouble coping with it, much to his father's dismay. But unfortunately, Toru's father seems to be too busy with his small resteraunt business to help his son with these problems.
One day, while playing with his friends near a beach (right around the very spot that Gamera detonated), Toru notices a strange red glow emanating from a nearby island formation across the bay. Deciding to investigate it, Toru comes across an egg resting atop a bizarre red rock. When he picks up the egg, it immediately hatches, revealing a baby turtle within. Toru decides to take this little turtle in, naming him "Toto", a nickname his mother used to give him.
As he tries his hardest to keep his new pet a secret from his father, Toru begins to realize that his new pet is no ordinary turtle; as little Toto can fly and shoot fireballs. His neighbor, a young girl named Mai, suspects that Toto may be related to the monster Gamera, something which Toru refuses to accept.
That is... until Toto begins to seemingly, and steadily, increase in size almost every day. It soon becomes apparent to Toru that his pet turtle is in fact a new Gamera, and this brings a new worry for him. Because the last Gamera ended up killing itself fighting an enemy. This is something Toru doesn't want to happen.
Unfortunately a new menace emerges from the ocean, a destructive monster known as Zedus. Can Toru keep his soon giant-sized friend from suffering the same fate as it's predacessor???
Like I previously stated, this movie borrows aspects from both previous series. A little here, and a little there, while trying to craft it's own story. It's almost a mixture of the Showa and Heisei approaches, blending the more fun and care-free style of the Showa series with (an attempt at) the seriousness of the Heisei trilogy. Though I'd say GtB borrows more from it's Showa heritage than it does the Heisei.
So basically it's a Showa Gamera movie without the ridiculous camp, (for the most part) with more serious (aka: less annoying) children, but still keeping that slightly violent edge that the original movies had, despite being geared towards a younger audience. The movie executes this pretty well, but there are some definate shortcomings.
WHILE it does bring back the infamous "friend to all children" moniker, (which becomes more obvious as the movie nears it's end) yet keeping the children characters devoid of the annoyingly silly antics, short-shorts, and high-pitched voices of the past... the movie STILL manages to give them an annoyance of a totally different kind, and that is making their part of the story a bit overly sappy. Almost on a Disney live-action movie level... just with Gamera in it... oh and a man-eating kaiju named Zedus (who really does play up to the "man-eating" part). This become a wee bit more apparent as the movie goes on.
But I'm not saying it's a BAD story, by any stretch of the imagination, (it's a pretty good and touching story) but unfortunately it kinda takes precendence over the kaiju portion of the movie. Speaking of which...
I found the kaiju fights in this to be a little underwhelming, not disappointments, but not exactly pulse-pounding either. Granted this movie is following in the footsteps of the phenomenal (IMHO) 90's Gamera Trilogy, which had probably the best kaiju fights so far put onto film, (GFW's wannabe anime kung-fu can be damned) so it's a tough act to follow. But still... they could've done more with it. The reason behind this is probably because this is meant to be a sorta origin story for what's meant to be a new series, so this Gamera is still pretty "wet behind the ears", and thus spends most of his fights getting man-handled... err.. or should that be turtle-handled?? >.>;;;
And lastly, my final gripe would have to be the changes they made to Gamera himself. Apparently bringing him back to "friend of all children" territory means the director and crew have, apparently, tried to soften his image. Gone is his distinctive roar, (replaced by some stock dinosaur roar from the 50's/60's), and his face has been made more rounded. He hardly looks like anything remotely intimidating, almost looking a wee bit too much on the "cute" side than anything that's about to open a can of monster-sized whoop-ass.
So in the end... despite all my few complaints, it's still a pretty decent Gamera movie. If they EVER make a follow-up (which so far doesn't seem to be likely... sadly) I hope they let themselves cut loose a bit more in the next installment. I'd definately recommend seeing it.
Grade: Strong C+/B-, could've had alot more to it, but still pretty good.
With Shusuke Kaneko's departure from the 90's Gamera series, a huge void has been left that Daiei has tried to fill with this most recent outing, that brings their giant turbo-charged terrapin into the 21st Century. Like Godzilla's foray in the new millenium, Gamera begins with a clean slate that ignores all the previous movies, yet borrows aspects from them.
How is the movie?? How does it stack up to it's predacessors? Well I shall answer that in depth.
-Gamera the Brave- (2006)
-Story: Our movie begins in 1973, and a chaotic battle is nearing it's end. The giant monster Gamera is battling several of the dreaded Gyaos monsters, and from the looks of things... the giant turtle is steadily losing the fight. In a last ditch attempt to destroy his enemies utterly, as well as save the village they were attacking, Gamera self-destructs... taking the flying monstrosities with him. Watching from afar is a young boy, one of the survivors of the Gyaos attack.
About thirty or so years later, and the little boy has grown up to have a child of his own, named Toru. Sadly, Toru's mother recently died in a car-crash, and seems to be having trouble coping with it, much to his father's dismay. But unfortunately, Toru's father seems to be too busy with his small resteraunt business to help his son with these problems.
One day, while playing with his friends near a beach (right around the very spot that Gamera detonated), Toru notices a strange red glow emanating from a nearby island formation across the bay. Deciding to investigate it, Toru comes across an egg resting atop a bizarre red rock. When he picks up the egg, it immediately hatches, revealing a baby turtle within. Toru decides to take this little turtle in, naming him "Toto", a nickname his mother used to give him.
As he tries his hardest to keep his new pet a secret from his father, Toru begins to realize that his new pet is no ordinary turtle; as little Toto can fly and shoot fireballs. His neighbor, a young girl named Mai, suspects that Toto may be related to the monster Gamera, something which Toru refuses to accept.
That is... until Toto begins to seemingly, and steadily, increase in size almost every day. It soon becomes apparent to Toru that his pet turtle is in fact a new Gamera, and this brings a new worry for him. Because the last Gamera ended up killing itself fighting an enemy. This is something Toru doesn't want to happen.
Unfortunately a new menace emerges from the ocean, a destructive monster known as Zedus. Can Toru keep his soon giant-sized friend from suffering the same fate as it's predacessor???
Like I previously stated, this movie borrows aspects from both previous series. A little here, and a little there, while trying to craft it's own story. It's almost a mixture of the Showa and Heisei approaches, blending the more fun and care-free style of the Showa series with (an attempt at) the seriousness of the Heisei trilogy. Though I'd say GtB borrows more from it's Showa heritage than it does the Heisei.
So basically it's a Showa Gamera movie without the ridiculous camp, (for the most part) with more serious (aka: less annoying) children, but still keeping that slightly violent edge that the original movies had, despite being geared towards a younger audience. The movie executes this pretty well, but there are some definate shortcomings.
WHILE it does bring back the infamous "friend to all children" moniker, (which becomes more obvious as the movie nears it's end) yet keeping the children characters devoid of the annoyingly silly antics, short-shorts, and high-pitched voices of the past... the movie STILL manages to give them an annoyance of a totally different kind, and that is making their part of the story a bit overly sappy. Almost on a Disney live-action movie level... just with Gamera in it... oh and a man-eating kaiju named Zedus (who really does play up to the "man-eating" part). This become a wee bit more apparent as the movie goes on.
But I'm not saying it's a BAD story, by any stretch of the imagination, (it's a pretty good and touching story) but unfortunately it kinda takes precendence over the kaiju portion of the movie. Speaking of which...
I found the kaiju fights in this to be a little underwhelming, not disappointments, but not exactly pulse-pounding either. Granted this movie is following in the footsteps of the phenomenal (IMHO) 90's Gamera Trilogy, which had probably the best kaiju fights so far put onto film, (GFW's wannabe anime kung-fu can be damned) so it's a tough act to follow. But still... they could've done more with it. The reason behind this is probably because this is meant to be a sorta origin story for what's meant to be a new series, so this Gamera is still pretty "wet behind the ears", and thus spends most of his fights getting man-handled... err.. or should that be turtle-handled?? >.>;;;
And lastly, my final gripe would have to be the changes they made to Gamera himself. Apparently bringing him back to "friend of all children" territory means the director and crew have, apparently, tried to soften his image. Gone is his distinctive roar, (replaced by some stock dinosaur roar from the 50's/60's), and his face has been made more rounded. He hardly looks like anything remotely intimidating, almost looking a wee bit too much on the "cute" side than anything that's about to open a can of monster-sized whoop-ass.
So in the end... despite all my few complaints, it's still a pretty decent Gamera movie. If they EVER make a follow-up (which so far doesn't seem to be likely... sadly) I hope they let themselves cut loose a bit more in the next installment. I'd definately recommend seeing it.
Grade: Strong C+/B-, could've had alot more to it, but still pretty good.
It's great, I love the Zedus kaiju, and the miniature effects are outstanding, Kaneko is a great director IMO. Wish they could bring him back for more daikaiju movies. I am looking forward to the "Death Kappa" movie though...it's coming to here to DVD in May before it's release in Japanese theaters, and I've got a friend on the set...so can't wait to hear more about it! ;)