Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion

For years now, all I've had was the original Japanese language version, without subtitles, thinking this is the best giant monster film to ever come along. Now, after seeing it subtitled, I believe it's easily the best of the 3 new Gamera films. The situations involving people, are well integrated with the story, and kept in proximity to the action. Legion, the giant insect-like crustacean, is the best monster ever to come out of Japan. It's also one of the most articulated creatures ever designed. The icing on the eiga, is the great CGI effects, like the animated lasers Legion emits, and Gamera's fire-balls. Suspension of disbelief is not a problem. The most amazing thing is, that they were able to take what was ludicrous camp in the extreme, and succeeded in making it respectable art. You'll believe a giant prehistoric saber-toothed fire-breathing turtle, CAN fly !

...at least IMNSHO. It was high time someone thought up an insect kaiju that could be tough,scary,and interesting(Kumonga,Mothra and Kamacuras? Give me a break.Only Megaguirus came close to being interesting.) There was so much to like about this movie-intelligent dialog(even after the dubbing),great fight scenes,and the fact that the emphasis was placed on the monsters,and not the actors. No silly new "ultimate monster fighting weapon that gets trashed in 30 seconds"-just get those idiots from the JSDF out of the way,and let Gamera take care of business.But the big G had his hands full here-the Legion swarm were bad enough,but the mother creature was awesome,and didn't roll over when she got hurt. The mandible blasts were great,but those red "whip" beams that went right thru Gamera were awesome. I even liked the Legion's voice-it sounded like a rusty gate opening! Gamera was incredible,and that fireball slide trick he did was the bomb. With a new Gamera movie coming out next year,and Toho making it plain from the ending of Godzilla:Final Wars that they have no intention of waiting 5-10 years for a new Godzilla movie,I,along with many other kaiju fans,demand that Toho and Deiei quit fooling around,and make the deal-Godzilla vs.Gamera.What else is left?

The second part of the new gamera-series offers the same advantages of the first movie only with improved quality. The design of legion is well done offering a mean, foreign but interesting looking villain that threatens earth (especially Japanese cities :) The story is convincing, revealing the nature of legion step by step (meaning the film is very interesting even if there are humans instead of monsters on screen, which is, in my opinion is very important to a film based on special effects).

An amazingly well done film you'll surely want to watch more than only one time.

Upon watching Gamera 2 I've come to the conclusion that this is the best kaiju movie ever.#1 Gamera faced an impossible enemy who not only had thousands of deadly offspring,but was over twice his size with awesome fire power.#2 There was also a daytime battle in which you got to get a better look at both monsters.#3 Need I say more on how cool Gamera looked when he inhaled oxygen from the Legion pod before he blew it to pieces.#4 The destructive blast to the city of Sentai that took Gamera out as well was second to none.#5 Who can forget about how before the last battle Gamera flew into a side slide landing as well as blasting Legion with Plasma Fireballs.#6 Need I say more about the Plasma blast Gamera fired from his chest that took out Legion once and for all.I think this movie was better that any Gojira movie ever made.

I must say, I picked this one up expecting it to be just another Japanese rubber suit monster movie and thought it might be a bit of a laugh in that 'so bad its good' type of way. I was surprised however to find a very decent film which kept me engaged from the beginning, with a logical and 'plausible' storyline (if you can suspend disbelief when it comes to pre-historic flying turtles stomping their way through miniature cities etc.) and a decent script. The special effects are also pretty good, even though the main protagonists are of the 'men in rubber suits' variety. The only problem is, I'm now going to have to go and hunt down the other 2 installments! I've watched many worse Hollywood films recently and would recommend this to anyone who likes a good 'creature feature'.