Reaction & Review | Gamera 3: Revenge Of Iris

Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a kaiju film from 1999. That movie is "Gamera 3: Revenge Of Iris".

Now, on the off chance that you're reading this review for the first time, I've been covering this trilogy of Gamera movies that were released in the mid-to-late 90's this entire month. The first two movies were really fascinating, and I really enjoyed both of them. And I have high hopes that this third movie in this Gamera trilogy is going to be just as awesome as the two previous movies were. Because the first movie was really good, and the sequel was even better. So I'm hoping that this third movie is going to knock it out of the park, because that's how good these Gamera movies have been so far.

Now, before I get into this movie, I have a little bit of an update I wanted to share with you guys. I stated at the start of this month that my experiences with kaiju movies were very limited, because I had only seen about a couple of movies involving Godzilla, and that's about it. Well, earlier this month, I was channel surfing on my TV one day, and a little known network as the Movies! TV Network was showcasing some kaiju movies. And I watched about several of them, because, as I just stated, I had barely seen any kaiju films. And the films that I watched were "Invasion Of Astro-Monster", which I caught about half of it because I was watching something else at that time. Another one was "Destroy All Monsters", which was pretty good. Then they showed "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla", which was really good. And then the last one I ended up watching was "Terror Of Mechagodzilla", which was the sequel to "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla", and I really enjoyed that also. So, I can officially say that I have expanded more on my catalog of kaiju movies under my viewing experience. Granted, I understand that there's plenty more of these particular movies that I haven't seen yet, but I have at least seen a little more since I first started covering these Gamera movies.

Speaking of which, as with the previous two Gamera films in this trilogy, I don't know what the hell to expect from this one. All I'm hoping is for it to be just as awesome as the two previous movies were. And the only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is any good at all, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Gamera 3: Revenge Of Iris".

4 minutes later

There's a graveyard of Gamera's at the bottom of the sea? Huh...you know, guys, I never would've imagined that there was more than one Gamera. Well, then again, they did sorta mention that legend from the first movie, so maybe it's something I should've taken notice on. But still, the fact there's a bunch of dead Gamera's laying at the bottom of the sea is just incredibly morbid.

2 minutes later

So, her Dad was inside this apartment taking pictures of Gamera, as it was heading towards the complex, thus destroying it, and killing him in it as well. My only question is why the fuck would you take pictures of an incoming monster heading towards your way? It just makes no fucking sense whatsoever! Oh...and apparently, it was all a dream. Or it may have been a flashback. Anyway, point being, if he was at a distance on the ground somewhere while he was taking the pictures, then maybe I could've understood that. But no, he had to be in one of the worst possible locations, and it ended up costing him his life. I should feel sorry for him, but in all honesty, I don't.

19 minutes later

You know, guys, a moment ago, I was gonna say that this movie was moving at a slower pace than usual, but now we finally got Gamera on screen. Along with, what I'm going to assume is suppose to be Gyaos again. And if it is Gyaos, then I'm wondering how in the hell it survived from the first movie all the way to the third one? Either way, this movie is beginning to pick itself up, and I'm hoping it continues this way.

3 minutes later

Guys, you know how I mentioned earlier about how these trilogy of movies were suppose to be darker in tone? Well, I just saw Gamera's fire breath wipe out a good portion Japan's citizens while attacking Gyaos. Holy shit, that was brutal. Really cool-looking, but god damn did it turn itself up a notch!

11 minutes later

So this baby Iris was able to pierce through a can of, either, soda or tea, with it's claw, while also being able to drink the liquid from the top of the can with it's claw. Well...I can, at least, say it's creative. Kinda frightening in hindsight. But still, it was rather creative.

12 minutes later

OK, I have to ask this now. So, we've been getting a bunch of news reports in regards to Gyaos attacks all over the world. Are we actually going to get to see ANY of these bird attacks that keeps getting reported on? Because, so far, we have not gotten any footage or images of any of these attacks that are going on as they proclaim. Now, I totally understand that the news is almost never going to be honest with it's viewers, but I would, at least, expect Japan's journalism to be slightly more honest, at least when compared to America's journalism, since they have been a fucking joke for decades now. But hey, maybe that's just me.

10 minutes later

So...I guess Iris can suck the souls out of people by making them look like dead zombies...interesting. Again, it is kinda creative. Kind of odd, but then again, it does explain what happened to that other person from earlier on in the movie. Not really what I was expecting out of a movie involving Gamera, but still, I'm willing to roll with it.

12 minutes later

Well, it took almost an hour, but we finally get to see Gamera in action again. And now that it's here, I'm wondering how in the world it's going to stop Iris? I'm not sure if it's going to be as bloody as the battle with Legion, but who knows? I'm curious to see how this battle is going to turn out.

8 minutes later

All right, guys, this is it. We're now up to the final showdown between Gamera and Iris. And I am so looking forward to seeing this huge showdown between the two. I think this is going to be awesome.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Gamera 3: Revenge Of Iris". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. Wow...um, what to even say...? Well, I guess I can officially say that I have finished this trilogy of the Gamera movies. And you know what? This entire trilogy delivered on what it set out to do, and I am damn happy about that.

So, I guess now it's finally time to cover this movie by getting into the writing. Now, in the previous two movies, I stated that these movies were intended to be a darker reboot of the Gamera series. Now, I don't know how the previous Gamera movies were like in terms of it's tone back then, so I can't really say if they were as dark as these movies were, or if they leaned on being more light-hearted with it's tone. But regardless, these movies wanted to be in a darker tone. Now with the first movie, I didn't feel like it was a very dark movie. Now, it does have it's dark moments, but it still leaned on it's light-hearted moments to where it was able to balance it's tone perfectly well. The second movie, however, definitely felt like a darker movie. In fact, it felt much more like a horror movie. Which, some people who have never seen a monster movie would consider them horror movies, what with monsters being involved and all. However, that is most certainly not the case. But with the second movie, it definitely had more of it's darker moments, while at the same time was able to retain some of it's light-heartedness as well. Now, in regards to the third movie, I can say right off the bat that this movie is, quite possibly, one of the bleakest films I have seen in a long time, especially when it comes to kaiju films. We have tons of destruction, death, and a lot of blood spilled. The latter portion belonging to the final battle of the movie, however, I will not spoil very much about that final fight, other than it being awesome.

Now, I want to touch upon Gamera itself for a moment. And this is gonna tie into a potential problem that I can see some viewers having when it comes to this movie. You see, even though this movie is about our titled character, it barely shows up in this movie. You see it within the first 20-25 minutes of the movie, where it's fighting against a Gyaos monster, which makes it's return in this movie. In fact, I mentioned this earlier, the Gyaos are seen attacking different portions of the world. Now, we don't to get to see any of these attacks, other than a newspaper article which explains the attacks happening around the world. It's not really explored too much, outside of a brief mention towards the end of the movie. But aside from that, they're not really the focus of the film. I kinda wished we got more out of that, since I don't know if they explored that in any of the future Gamera movies after this one. But anyway, getting back to Gamera for a moment, the only other time that you see it in the film is when it saves a couple of fighter pilots from being destroyed by Iris. Because within almost the first hour after the first 20-25 minutes goes by, we don't really get to see much of Gamera in this movie. Most of this focus is gonna be on the human characters. And I'm gonna tell you, guys, our characters here are very well fleshed out, and this movie definitely takes the time to give our characters the development that they need. Now to some people who don't care about any of that stuff in their monster movies, then this movie is probably not gonna be for you, because those people will only really care about seeing the monsters fight each other. And while that's something that I like to see too, I kinda care more about substance as well. Which is one of the big reasons why I'm not a huge fan of most plotless action movies, because a lot of them don't really provide a lot of content when it comes to their stories, or lack thereof, anyway. So, this movie definitely has that advantage when it comes to it's writing is that it has a really strong story and very well-written characters as well.

The one I want to comment on the most is Gamera. Now I mentioned earlier about how this movie is probably one of the bleakest kaiju films I have ever seen. Most of that is centered around Gamera. You see, for those who are more knowledgeable about these kaiju movies than I am can tell you that Gamera is known to be a friend to call children, and is suppose to protect the people of Japan. But in this movie...I don't see much of that here, because during the fight against Gyaos, Gamera just lays waste to almost an entire city, as it's trying to destroy Gyaos. You see it using it's fire breath, which causes tons of damage around it, and also killing tons of people as well. And I have to wonder, from between the time of the first two movies and going into this one, maybe something inside changed Gamera to a point where it stopped caring about the people that it was suppose to be protecting. And I think part of the reason for it was because it's not connected to Asagi anymore. For those of you who have been reading these reviews, she was in the previous two Gamera movies, and she's the one who's had a psychic connection with Gamera through her magatama. But since she admitted that she doesn't have that connection with it anymore, Gamera gets to do what it wants without consequence. Now to be fair, Gamera does have a conscience, but it's mostly not seen until towards the end of the movie. Which again, I'm not gonna spoil very much on, because I really don't want to spoil anything for you guys. This movie is genuinely amazing. And if you're able to look past the fact that this movie is not really focusing much on the monster battles themselves, then what you have is a really stellar movie.

So, it goes without saying that the writing in this movie is damn near fantastic. It does, admittedly, have a slow boil, but it definitely pays off towards the end in a big way. Now, with that being said, let's get into the acting. And much like the previous two movies, I went into this movie watching the English dub. And I will say that the dub here is really good. In fact, I think that this movie has the best dub out of the two movies that I watched. However, I will also say, again, that if you're someone who doesn't like to listen to English dubs, then, much like the previous two movies, it does have an option to where you can watch this movie with it's original Japanese audio and English subtitles. So really, it depends on your preference, whether it's on anime or any kind of foreign movie with an English dub. Mind you, when compared to other movies I've seen with English dubs, it's not the best dub I've heard. But when it comes to this trilogy of movies, I can say that the dub here is probably the best dub from this trilogy. So, I can totally say that the dub is worth it, and just about all of the actors had enough material to work with for their characters. So yeah, this dub is pretty damn great.

The special effects are also some of the best I've seen from this trilogy. Now mind you, this movie came out in 1999. But I will say that, by 1999 standards, it has some damn good special effects. The CG here is pretty awesome. The fire effects look fucking great. The suit-work here for the monsters look really good. In fact, I didn't think about this until recently, but Gamera looks a little bit...different, when compared to it's appearances in the previous two movies. I'm not totally sure what it is, but I noticed that it has more spikes on it's body. For example, there are spikes on it's arms and around it's head. Now, I don't know if that was because of some wear and tear from it's previous battles with Gyaos and Legion where it was able to grow itself those spikes, or if something had happened to the Gamera suit from the previous two movies where they had to make a new one, thus would be the reason why Gamera looks a little bit different in this movie. I don't know, and it could just be me theorizing about bullshit, but it was something that was kinda on my mind. But regardless of all that, the special effects in this movie are fucking great, and I think that they still look pretty good for today's standards as well.

Camerawork here is really good. The lighting here is lit really well. Our sound-mix here is perfectly fine. The score here is also really good, too. It's pretty much on par with what was in the previous two movies, so I think that's a huge positive that they were able to remain consistent with the music for these movies.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Gamera 3: Revenge Of Iris"? If you had seen the previous two films in this trilogy, and you enjoyed those movies, then you are going to love this thing. It is a fantastic movie. Again, as long as you're able to look past the fact that this movie is focusing more on it's story rather than the monster battles themselves, you're going to have a blast with this movie. In fact, even though I kinda already showed my hand here, I can recommend this entire trilogy of the Gamera movies. I was able to find a box set of these 3 movies on DVD for about $22. And I'm gonna tell you, it's $22 well spent. Now I hear it's possible that you can get all 3 of these for a cheaper price, and if you can, grab it. I can't gush enough about how awesome all 3 of these movies were. And it seriously made me want to watch more kaiju films for this series. Now I can't guarantee when, or even if, that will happen. But I can definitely say that, thanks to this month, I am officially a fan of kaiju movies. And I seriously cannot wait to watch more of them. Hopefully, more of them will be covered for this series, but we'll just have to wait and see. Now...I mentioned in a previous Reaction & Review that I had bought the entirety of "Godzilla: The Series" on DVD. And since I just got done finishing these movies, I kinda want to continue with the kaiju theme, so I'm gonna go marathon some episodes of that series because it's a pretty good series, and I never got to watch it in it's entirety. So, I'm gonna go and do that next, and these movies are definitely going to have a nice spot in my DVD collection.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.