Review: This Gamera film ushers in a rebirth for the “other” green guy, arriving about 30 years after the release of his very first film in the sixties. Director Shusuke Kaneko and genius special effects master Shinji Higuchi join forces and reunite Gamera with a nemesis that made it’s first appearance way back in the third Gamera film of the original series, Gyaos. Gamera looks great in this movie, and in comparison to the rest of the trilogy, this is probably his most basic design harkening back to his original look. He’s a bad bad mutha, but he still has those large “puppy dog with rockets coming out of its ass” eyes that seem almost innocent.

Gyaos, on the other hand, is a gigantic cannibalistic bird (well, it used to be a group of birds until…you know…they ATE eachother), that has, by the movies end, grown even larger and more territorial. Originally discovered on an island of about 18 people (which soon became 17, then 10, then none), the Gyaos birds migrated over to Tokyo to wreak even more havoc. This sends the military and the general public into frenzy, as this all coincides with the appearance of another monster, the lumbering turtle Gamera.

Gamera appears as a mysterious floating atoll is uncovered by a group of military seafarers. Some small stone pendants are discovered about the atoll, as well as an ominous prophetic stone marker. One of the men gives the pendant he finds to the young Asagi Kusanagi, played by Ayako Fujitani. As the film progresses, this pendant becomes a lifeline connection between her and Gamera, and as he feels pain, so does she.

This is one of the most unique aspects to these Gamera films, the intense connection between Asagi and Gamera. Although her life is endangered by being so closely connected to a giant Turtle trapped in a duel to the death, her own strength also manages to usher him on due to the connection. It’s never really as life threatening as the filmmakers would like you to believe, though. Gamera doesn’t even know how to land in this movie; he just plummets over and over again. If they really were that deeply connected to each other, she would have randomly gone ker-splat while playing Nintendo one day.

While that arguably would have made for some capital entertainment, killing off a protagonist that’s supposed to be in all three films may not be the best idea in the world. That’s okay, though, as there’s enough entertainment in this movie to ween the entire city of Reno off of their weekly Engelbert Humperdinck fix. When military roundtables aren’t deliberating back and forth on whether Gamera is good or evil, the giant turtle is kicking devil bird ass from building to building, wearing out the pinball machine we know as Tokyo until it tilts.

This is where the review slides off the table and lands in a big puddle of “I love Shinji Higuchi” goo. As competent as the films direction is, the real hats off needs to go to the special effects man, who labored over intricate destructive action scenes using little to no CG (mostly when it’s time to shoot a fireball or two), in what is the least technically astounding of the three films. Calling it this is a huge compliment, though, as Higuchi makes mountains with the molehills provided to him.

Now that the review is lying soaked in the puddle, I may as well harp endlessly on about my love for miniatures, and how ingenious their construction is in this film as well. To some, the small balsa wood buildings in Kaiju films may seem cheesy or fake. However, the amount of work that must have gone into these in Gamera is staggering. City streets rise and crack under the hot midday sun, buildings tumble and telephone wires bend and snap under the mercy of gigantic beasts. And this is all at something like 1/100 scale. The detail is confounding at times, and it goes to show how important even the smallest minutiae are in these scenes.

The action is ambitious and hard-hitting. In an opening press conference, Higuchi hinted at how he wanted to present Hayao Miyazaki film like aerial combat in the new Gamera films. While he didn’t really get around to this until the third film, due to its at-that-time sheer impossibility, the aerial fight scene in Guardian of the Universe is impressive in a different sense. It’s more of a last ditch effort by Gamera, a kamikaze plummet from space to the ground, Gyaos in claw, ‘til death do us part. This is all captured in the final fight, taking place in the immediate vicinity of a crushed and nested on Tokyo Tower.

This final scene is the meat of the film. Though there are some action scenes before it (including a very Matthew Broderick’s Godzilla stadium capture), none match the intensity of this final battle, which the entire film builds up to. Though a lot of the movie is spent concerning and following the plight of the main characters such as Asagi, and the lovely military lass Mayumi Nagamine (played by Shinobu Nakayama), most of the time you’ll just be waiting for Gamera to rear his sexy head again. This isn’t bad at all though, as the more human related scenes add to the rising force of the Gyaos/Gamera conflict.

Luckily, in these scenes, only once do they begin to bog the viewer down with the plight of Mother Nature and the threat humanity is to itself. We begrudgingly learn the poignant life lesson, that if we would just stop horsin’ around with the planet, then we wouldn’t have 100-foot tall demon birds to deal with. While it’s acceptable in this, as it’s used sparingly, these types of morals always pop up in Kaiju films, especially more recent fare. It was a distressing and decidedly well-timed issue in Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster, but unfortunately loses its impact in present day filmmaking, and seems cheesy.

At any rate, this doesn’t detract from the movie at all, which is an exciting and well-paced film. The orchestral score is loud and effective, and manages to accent Gamera’s pummeling right and left hooks perfectly. It also goes really well with the military theme, and at times seems very Hollywood. Play this movie as loud as possible and revel in the rumbling bass of Kaiju footsteps rattling your walls as if Gamera was coming to pick you up on a hot date.