User reviews

If you're looking for a movie that will move you, make you laugh, cry, thrill you, scare you, and shake you to the core of your being - THIS ISN'T IT!

Wow. Such a clunker. I knew it was going to be horrible - that was why I watched it. With that in mind, I loved it! The only truly good thing about it was Adam Baldwin. The other actors all generally sucked, and the Outstanding Sucking Award goes to the son, whoever played him, I can't be bothered to go back and check the name. His acting was horrible, and his voice annoying. Some credit, however, must be given to the writers, who gave him the awful lines and the terrible parallel to the baby creature who had also lost its mother. WHAT A SHOCK! I WAS SO STRUCK TO LEARN ABOUT THE AMAZING CONNECTION HE HAD WITH THE CREATURE!

The creatures were so truly awful as to remind me of the original Star Trek series, and the plot was obviously contrived after the writers had watched Jurassic Park, then Godzilla, and then gotten heavily drunk

It was a wonderful movie to watch and insert lines into (think Mystery Science Theatre), and Adam Baldwin was at least competent, even if his lines sucked too, and he's always nice to look at. If you're looking for a great clunker, this is it! I was well pleased with what it is.

In a small island in Polynesia, the widow biologist Jack Ellway (Adam Baldwin) is developing some type of marine research. Meanwhile, some locals have disappeared and pretty soon, Jack realizes that a family of mutants lizards have escaped from an opening in the bottom of the ocean and the male (`father') is trying to rescue its family. Jack and some other scientists give their best effort to save the animals and return them to their environment. Wow, I did not believe in the rating of IMDB and have decided to check this movie. It is indeed a crap, being cheesy and corny. The monsters are clones of Godzila, and the baby lizard has the eyes of ET, recalling Sean Young's 1985 `Baby... Secret of the Lost Legend'. The story has some very ridiculous points. For example, when the marines are called to save the locals from the lizards. The marines basically destroy the island with their weapons, while the poor animal is only trying to gather its family. Therefore, the marines are indeed the greater menace for the persons and their possessions. When some soldiers are smashed by the foot or bitten by its teeth, nobody feels sorry for their deaths; however, when the female dies, there are many tears. Maybe children may like this predictable story. My vote is four.

Twenty foot, nine foot; size is not that important when it involves these freaks of nature effected by insecticides and angered by underwater earthquakes. The giant ocean creatures bring fear to a tiny Polynesian island and a marine biologist(Adam Baldwin) and his young son(Emile Hirsch)try to protect them from being killed. Julie Carmen and Peter Adams also participate in this more or less waste of time.

Gargantua really isn't a bad film at all, once you understand that it is really designed for kids. It doesn't follow the standard rampaging monster picture formula; and it is definitely not an old fashioned "D" monster movie. It is an adventurous morality tale with modern ecological elements for kids, and the young at heart, to enjoy.

The monsters are not vicious; they are merely trying to protect themselves as a family. There is a clear parallel between them and the young boy who has lost is mother and clings so desperately to his father, the scientist in the times of danger. A good monster picture always has a scientist to explain the obvious to us. This one has a science hero who is a conservationist, determined to save the monsters if possible. The film has many elements with which children will quickly identify. It is really produced on that plane. I love a good monster flick of any kind and I can appreciate Gargantua on the level.

The production values of Gargantua are quite good. The camera work and the sea-going adventure scenes are quiet well done. The acting is superior and the plot is cohesive. Let the film thrill the kids and realize that it's not really made for jaded, overly-critical adults. It sure beats the pants off of the spate of formula snake movies and genetic mutation muddles I've seen of late. Let the kids have their fun with Gargantua, and go pick on "Boa", or Pythons 2, quagmires truly worthy of disdain.

I gave this piece of garbage 1 because that is the lowest there was. It deserved less.

The "creature" effects were terrible. The "baby" moved like a cheap shop dummy badly in need of lubrication. About the only good thing I can say for the effect of the adult creatures is that at least you couldn't see through them. I would suggest that next time the "script writers" come up with a cause for the mutation, they show some logic in the way they show it on screen. Hint: I would very much suspect that DDT does not glow luminescent green a few thousand feet under the water!

There was at faint glow of hope. At one point in the movie the Internet gets mentioned. When they showed someone using a computer to look at something, they didn't have one of those ridiculously pathetic GUIs where every key press was accompanied with loud clicking.

To paraphrase Monty Pythons The Holy Grail, when you see this one coming "RUN AWAY!"

Totally unreal - the monsters. Who'd think that in a year like 1998, we'd be expected to be satisfied by a dinosaur-thing that looks more like something a six-year-old made in Arts and Craft! Of course, no one is expecting Jurassic Park-like monsters, but a little more effort could have been made to engineer a more realistic monster - that's why we have computers. It's a shame - the movie had plot and character, and would have merited at least an above average 6 stars from me, if not for the fake-looking Gargantua that is the focus and title of this movie.

It sounds like the long-lost sequel to WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS (1967) and comes in an ALIEN-style video box, but this is actually a lame kiddie-style tele-movie that debuted on Fox.

Adam Baldwin is a widowed scientist on the Australian island of Malau with his depressed young son, where illegal DDT dumping results in a variety of mutant creatures. A cute baby salamander monster with big goo-goo eyes makes friends with the son after he feeds him cheese balls. A not-so-nice medium sized one with sharp teeth and horns follows, and a really mean giant mama monster comes searching for her babies and terrorizes the city. Naturally, the military shows up, act as dense as they usually do in these movies and blast the big one. THEN the father shows up!

I suppose that kids may like it, but the lousy dialogue and nauseating family dramatics will be a bit much for adults to stomach. FX give new meaning to the term "uneven"--the two smaller monsters (either animatronics or CG) aren't bad, but the larger ones are almost on the same level of those old Saturday Matinée GODZILLA flicks.

And the moral of the story hasn't changed--be nice to giant lizard monsters or they will stomp on you!

foiwehfoightu wekjfhwdfgiousdy89234osdfjwefiou tju roitj39857t neioujhu weoiwut9348ru n. There. That makes more sense than this trashy movie which is about giant salamanders which can magically tolerate salt water. It reminds me of the time my friend Annie Bananie was using frogs for a science project at school. Her mother kept cleaning the terrarium with Windex. This gave the frogs brain damage and ruined all of Annie's data. Annie Bananie's dad had to take the frogs out back and cut their heads off with pinking shears to put them out of their misery. I wish he had lopped MY head off before I watched this waste of celluloid. If "Gargantua" had been made in the 50's, even American International or Allied Artists wouldn't have released it-- it's that bad.

Take one pound of stale hippie.

Liberally add elements of E.T., Jurassic Park, Godzilla, and the Courtship of Eddie's Father.

Add a Baldwin for flavor, does not need to be a Baldwin Brother.

Simmer for two hours over basic cable.

Illegally dump off-shore.

Mutates three.

This was probably a great TV film in 1998, and was a horror or sci-fi feature which kept the audiences on the edge of their seats, but in 2009 it is more of a comedy.

The story revolves around a father who is a Marine Biologist and his son Brandon who are investigating various changes in the region around the Polynesian Island of Malau. There are also several killings of people in the waters, which also brings in the Marine Corp.

This film kept me laughing especially when it reminded me of a famous commercial we see on TV today a "Greco". Some of the actors tried their best to play their different roles, but this film you can really forget about and move on.

If you expect an action-packed monster horror movie, don't watch this. You won't like it. It's terrible.

If, on the other hand, you are a connoisseur of really bad movies, this one is right up your street.

Imagine Jaws VIII, Godzilla VI, and E.T. IV mixed up together. The only thing wrong with this film is that it wasn't directed by Edward D Wood, Jr.

I didn't like this movie, I thought it would be good, but I was wrong. the creature was obviously a cheesy creation made out of paper mache and green paint. Nothing more. Bad acting AND no notable stars.

I was guilty of a gross error of judgement when I tuned in to 'Gargantua' (on satellite television) in an unguarded moment. I viewed with increasing disbelief as this cinematic aberration unfolded, unmatched in sheer awfulness by any contemporary sci-fi film which I have seen over the last two years. The 'design' of the 'monsters' must surely have been the product of individuals who suffered from a combination of colour-blindess and acute myopia and were in obvious need of psychiatric help. Add to this a generous helping of acting in a style which would make a cigar-store Indian seem animated,a storyline consisting of sentimentalised nonsense, a script which gives a whole new meaning to the word 'mediocre', together with special effects which appeared to pre-date Harryhausen on a bad day, then the sum total constitutes an experience never to be repeated ! I cannot believe that any rational person would be prepared to pay money to see this junk - certainly this is one to miss.

I watched this movie today. Well, by that i mean i watched the first hour.I should have known that a midday movie would be crap. The effects were incredibly outdated and for a movie made in '98 was a pretty lame effort. Also hate the fact that the first person to die was the man that went out in a canoe in the middle of the night, really. People aren't that stupid, are they? I hope not. Not really sure what age group this was aimed at but possibly young girls would like the baby 'salamander' for its cuteness. Although the big ones might cause some fright although the scariest bit about them is the crap representation of the poor animal. Also don't understand why the boy's mother had to have died. They could have just been separated but anyway. With all the problems in the movie Adam Baldwin did alright. He was the best bit about the movie.

I wish i could find a worse movie, but i never saw anything like Gargantua. Image effects are terrible, sound is horrible, the story and the characters are so bad that you might want to break your TV after this. If you pay attention (and i may tell you in advance, it will be hard), you'll see so many mistakes that you would not believe if someone told you. Bad, Bad, Bad.

This is, by far, the worse movie i've ever seen (maybe Gigli, but not now). TV movies, except SOME (AND JUST A FEW), are terrible and their point is to just give some pleasure to kids. You may not expect anything from them different than Gargantua.

-- forget this trash.

It's all well and good to note the proliferation of extra low-grade genre flicks since the advent of the Internet; outfits like The Asylum and Uncork'd Entertainment may be the biggest offenders, but they're hardly alone. Yet cheap schlock has been around in cinema nearly as long as the medium itself, and so has the endeavor to make a quick buck by riding on the coattails of bigger features. So the fact that TV movie 'Gargantua' premiered at the same time in 1998 as the weakly received 'Godzilla' starring Matthew Broderick - well, that alone says a lot about this title. This doesn't inherently mean that the picture can't be worthwhile on its own merits; on the other hand, as soon as we start watching, our assumptions are confirmed: this is pretty awful.

The pacing is recklessly swift. The writing is blunt, forthright, and forced, and bereft of all tact or nuance in every capacity: narrative, scene writing, dialogue, characters. The plot is common and contrived - it could mostly be swapped in and out of countless other titles, including kids' movies - and feels ever more inauthentic and ordinary for the fact of being forced through a grinder and thereby squashing any possible subtlety that could feasibly foster sincerity and uniqueness. Character background, emotive beats, action thrills, adventure; emphasizing the good vibes on the island that precede monster attacks, the amazement of this or that person at the course of events, sudden effusive scientific language describing something no one has ever seen before, or "revelations" about the origins of the monster: no matter what it is the film is trying to do in a moment, the result at all points is staggeringly brusque, terribly strained, and altogether overwrought. The more the title tries to embellish an inclusion, the worse it is in execution. This is as true of Bradford May's direction as it is of Ronald Parker's screenplay, and the acting in turn. Emile Hirsch may be a star in his own right now, but at thirteen years old when this was released, he comes off just as poorly as everyone else involved. Julie Carmen arguably gives the best performance, but then again, maybe it just seems like it because she has less time on-screen, and therefore doesn't suffer the same ill effects as much as her co-stars.

Seen at a glance the creature design is fine; as has been true elsewhere in horror and sci-fi, the more a creation is showcased, the more the artifice shines through. As far as that goes, I think low-budget B-movies of the 1950s might actually be the best point of comparison. In fairness, this probably has more to do with all those same issues I've mentioned above rather than the work of the effects artists behind the scenes, but that doesn't change the tawdry nature of the overall presentation. Practical effects are fine, but impacted by the rushed, frenzied, specious tenor of the production at large, and this absolutely extends to the editing and cinematography, too. Any major use of CGI - well, I don't even need to say it, do I? And for all this, the movie is also far longer than it should have been; there came a point where it felt like the experience should have thankfully almost been over, but as it turned out, I was only halfway through. At least in the last third there comes a scene that's so overdone and predictably melodramatic as to inspire laughter.

Flagrantly overcooked in too many ways, and terribly stale, undistinguished, and unremarkable in others, there's just far too much wrong with 'Gargantua' for it to be enjoyable. There was a kernel of potential here, and against all odds, some genuinely good ideas. For what it tries to do and be, I commend the effort. Would that more earnest effort were applied, however, and more care. There are worse things one could watch, but at this level the distinction just doesn't matter. If you're extra bored or curious this might be worth ninety minutes of your time, but only if you're well aware of what you're getting into and seeking passive distraction, and not active engagement. Otherwise, just do yourself a favor and completely pass on 'Gargantua.'

Whats funny is the military parade field type music that is played each time they engage the monster. Also all the military personnel on the battlefield are wearing white gloves while they're shooting at the monster and planning their strategy. It's really crazy. I like old 1950's and 1960's "B" grade sci fy movies, but this is probably one of the worst 3 I've ever watched. Then there's the red haired female singing at the night club. Singing over and over: "If she had a microphone in her chest, the words would get stuck in her throat", she must have repeated that six times. Unless you're just totally out of something to do, I would pass up this movie.

Godzilla movies are way better than this.

I love Adam Baldwin, so of course I've watched this many times. The story was cool, even touching in places, so what if the effects were subpar? Are they any better today on SyFy channel movies? Not on your life. And the stories and acting today are beyond dismal. In this I could tell Emile Hirsch was going to be a great actor and the entire cast here was competent and believable.

I know lotsa people out there really didn't like this film, but I did. Sure, the monsters were dodgy, but the actors were fantastic. There were references to modern technology, and the characters were actual people. The death of Jack Ellway's wife was a nice touch, it made the bond between father and son more believable. The story line is well-worn and unbelievable, but the baby and the mother are alright looking monsters, I guess. Adam Baldwin's character, Jack Ellway, is a contrast to the majority of his other roles as thugs, uniformed nonities and bad guys. It's also different from his characters in ID4, Major Mitchell and in The Patriot, Capt. Wilkins. In this movie he's just a regular guy, newly widowered, doing the best he can for his son while doing his job. Emile Hirsch has a few scenes in which he isn't allowed to shine as much as he might, (like where he cuts his finger, that was noticably fake) but he is the central character and a good actor as well. Doug Penty (Paul Bateman) has been in a few TV series, such as Paradise Beach, and, while he says a few things that are overly serious for his character, he plays the laidback surfie reporter very well. (Doesn't hurt that he's also gorgeous!!) Other cast members - Julie Carmen (Alyson Hart), Alexander Petersons (Derek), Peter Adams (Dr. Hale), Monroe Reimers (President Moki) and Bobby Hosea (Colonel Wayne) - help make this movie enjoyable as well.

Yup this was a special kind of movie.

It was like Tvs Sinbad the pirate! They have lizards for monsters, but make them look bigger. That's just stupid.

But hey, the movie gave me a good laugh;o)