Remember Gamera? This giant Japanese turtle who breathes fire and flies
around and is a friend to children everywhere? It was fun, but lord knows
it wasn't very good. Bad special effects, lame story lines and tons of
stock footage made these films bad enough, but when good ol' Sandy Frank
released them in America, he actually made them worse (A grown woman doing
the voices for 11 year girls is what pushed me over the edge.) Well, in
the 90's, Kaiju (Giant-Monster) films have gotten a lot better! No where
near the effects of Tri-Stars release of Godzilla this year (tho much
better stories), but more realistic monster suits updated for the 90's and
tons of CGI's effects for flame-breath and the such have made the Japanese
Godzilla movies something else to watch.
The Gamera franchise has been
resurrected in the 90's (Gamera III is being made now) with a vengeance!
The effects in Gamera II are better then most Hollywood movies. An alien
insect colony is invading Earth (or Japan specifically) and building nests
in Japanese cities(due to the high content of glass in the cities, which
the aliens eat). When their nest is complete, it sends energy into space
that threatens to destroy the entire city. Guarding the nest are thousands
of man-sized insect-like aliens. Gamera shows up to save the day and
destroys the nest, but then a second nest is built in another city. Gamera
is delayed in saving this city by a Kaiju sized alien (named Legion by the
scientists) and the entire city is blown up (and this isn't even the best
effect in the movie, unlike, say Independence Day). Now anther nest is
being built in Tokyo. Can Gamera defeat Legion and save Tokyo? The
special effects make all versions of Legion very believable, the science
explanations about Legion are very believable.
The only problem I have
with this movie is no matter how good it is, Gamera is still a
fire-breathing giant turtle. Otherwise, there is no camp in this movie.
It's worth seeking out in subtitled form. The first Gamera (the newest
version) is available on video now, but I believe it's dubbed, which I
avoid like the plague when it comes to Kaiju films (Video DaiKaiju offers
all the Gamera and Godzilla movies on video and most letterboxed by
mail-order. If you're fortunate enough to live in Boston, Tokyo Kid
carries many Kaiju films.)