Review of Yonggary (1999) by Barry J — 27 Nov 2009

With Reptilian, Japanese and South Korean film studios come together to answer back at America's big remake of Godzilla by presenting us with Reptilian, a film so awful and horribly painful to watch, it actually succeeds in making the also terribly Godzilla remake look like a work of art.

The story concerns archeologists (don't worry folks, the cast is primarily Americans) who uncover the fossilized bones of Yongary, a 200 million year old beast. The ball gets rolling when English-speaking puppet aliens devise an invasion to Earth that starts with the resurrection of Yongary (through lights and lightning) and have him become an unstoppable juggernaut hellbent on destroying the human race.

Amidst the melee of cartoon animation-quality effects, there's a pungent smell of death in the form of the entire casts' acting. Nearly 80% of the lines are those audience-grabbing lines (i.e.

"My God..." or "The prophecy has been fulfilled", etc). These lines are delivered so over-the-top, I actually started to enjoy it for all the laughter it induced from me. Seriously, calling a movie bad because of bad acting nowadays is usually a cop-out for morons who can't honestly answer why they dislike a movie, however, with Reptilian, it really IS the downfall of the movie.

..aside from the god awful effects, the terrible editing, a lack of continuity, and a story that goes beyond being realistic to any sort of degree. As far as recognizable faces, the biggest name in this seems to be Harrison Young (senior citizen Ryan in Saving Private Ryan, as well as House of 1,000 Corpses).

Reptilian is the sort of film that may potentially haunt me in nightmares for the rest of my life. Even as a campy kaiju film, this movie sucks...plain and simple.