Review of Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999) by Rob F — 09 Sep 2007

The third, and the best, of Shusuke Kaneko's trilogy re-imagining of the giant turtle. Yeah go ahead and snigger. To the uninitiated it's another rubber monster film. But if the casual viewer can set aside their preconceptions, what they'll find is a highly entertaining scifi film with some truly excellent special fx, seamlessly integrating practical and cgi effects (the aerial battle sequence is spectacular).

The monsters are truly terrifying, ferocious and brutal. Forget about fight scenes set in completely evacuated cities. Lots of innocent people are in the way of the monster battles, and lots of them pay for it vivid and horrific detail.

I'm a Godzilla fan but I'll admit, none from his extensive library of films approach the quality of this film or trilogy in action or depth. I understand J.J.Abrahms is making a movie ("Cloverfield") that shows the human point of view of a giant monster rampage.

He'd do well to watch this film as inspiration and to get an idea of how terrifying giant monsters roaming amongst us can be.