Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

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nTitle: Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

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nDirector:  Joe Dante

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nCast:  Zack Galligan,nPhoebe Cates, John Glover, Robert Picardo, Dick Miller, Christopher Lee, RobertnProsky

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nReview:

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nGremlins 2: The New Batch is the sequel to Gremlins (1984),none of the films that took over the box office during the summer of 1984. Nownthat summer was a good one! At the box office we had Indiana Jones and thenTemple of Doom (1984) fighting for the top spot with other huge money makersnlike Ghostbusters (1984), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), ThenKarate Kid (1984) and Purple Rain (1984). Still, in spite of this toughncompetition, Gremlins went on to make huge bank.  Joe Dante had established himself as andirector of successful films like Piranha (1978) and The Howling (1981), but itnwas with Gremlins that he had his first huge hit. A sequel was a no brainer;nunfortunately, Dante didn’t want to revisit the grueling experience of making anfilm like Gremlins. The studio went on to plan a sequel without Dante’s involvement (Gremlins go to Mars!) but since for whatever the reason, it never materialized, they approached Dante yet again offeringnhim a bigger budget and cart blanche with the project, this is to say, he couldndo with the film whatever the hell he wanted; and that he did my friends, thisnfilm is pure Joe Dante every step of the way.

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nThe story centers once again around Billy and Kate, the twonteenagers who confronted and destroyed the Gremlins on the first film. Thisntime around, Billy and Kate are young adults and have moved from the smallnsuburban town they lived on in the first film, to New York City! They both worknin Clamp Plaza, an ultra modern building where everything is computerized!nMeanwhile, as fate would have it, Gizmo The Mogwai gets sent to a bionengineering lab in the very same building! It isn’t long before Gremlins startnreproducing, turning monstrous and destroying everything in sight! Will Billynand Kate have what it takes to stop these creatures before they escape thenbuilding and wreck havoc on New York City?

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nGremlins 2: The New Batch is obviously a larger picture.nWhere the first film was an 11 million dollar picture, this sequel had 50nmillion dollars to work with. To the films favor, I will say that you do seenthe money up there on the screen, there’s literally thousands of Gremlins onnthis film tearing up the place. If you take a look at the first film, thengremlins are virtually indistinguishable from one another. But on Gremlins 2nthey employed the talents of makeup effects guru Rick Baker. This is the guynresponsible for making each Gremlin in Gremlins 2 different from one another; RicknBaker is the reason why we get Vegetable Gremlin,  a Gremlin who talks, a female Gremlin, a can’tnstop the laughter Gremlin, we get a Spider Gremlin;  we even get an electrical Gremlin made up ofnpure energy! These variations make this sequel way more fun than the first. Sonyeah, this film is way bigger than its predecessor, we don’t only  get more Gremlins, we also get a large amountnof cameos on this one. This is one of those films filled with cameo after cameo,nwhich of course makes everything that much more fun.

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n And speaking of fun, it seems that this was Joe Dante’s goalnwith this sequel, to make it funnier than the first one which in contrastnplayed out more like a horror film. Honestly, this is where the first film isnsuperior to this sequel in my book. What I loved about the original one is thatnit’s a bit darker in tone than this sequel, which is so bright, goofy andncolorful by comparison. Gremlins 2: The New Batch feels like a live actionnWarner Brothers cartoon, which makes perfect sense when we take innconsideration that Joe Dante is a true blue fan of the old Warner BrothersnCartoons, the ones with Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny . This is evidentnby the many slapstick gags that Dante squeezes into the film,  the whole vibe of the film is cartoony; thisnis really what sets this sequel apart from the first film. The first Gremlinsnfilm is so much more of a horror film. By the way, Chris Columbus the writernbehind the first film, had written a far gorier and scarier picture then thenone we got. Columbus’s script had the Gremlins killing people in gory ways, but Dante and Spielberg softened the film up a bit because Spielberg himself thoughtnthe film had to be as family friendly in order for it to be successful. Still, even with thenmodifications to the script, the first Gremlins film has its scary moments. Sonmuch so that, along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the firstnGremlins film was the reason why the PG-13 rating was created. The filmnwasn’t all that scary, but it wasn’t all that innocent either, so the PG-13 wasncreated as a middle ground for films of this nature. But when compared to thenfirst Gremlins film, Gremlins 2: The New Batch isn’t even remotely scary; it’s simply, goofy, cartoony fun.

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nThe only negative thing I can really say about this movie isnthat it starts out like a normal film, with a story and everything, butnsomewhere along the line it turns into a series of vignettes or sketches if younwill, with the Gremlins causing all sorts of mayhem. The film even gets a bitnsurreal and other times it turns into a musical? What I didn’t enjoy is thatnthis sketchy nature of the film hurt it, because you don’t feel as if you’renwatching a film, you feel more like you’re watching a series of gags. Yeah theynare fun gags, but this sequel isn’t like the first one, which did feel like antrue blue genuine film. Still, Gremlins 2: The New Batch has many good thingsngoing for it, mainly the creature effects which are still awesome by today’s standards;nin fact, I love how the Gremlins are all real and palpable. These werenamazingly animated puppets. I’m pretty sure if they made one of these filmsntoday, every Gremlin would be computer generated, and that would suck for me.nBut, thankfully, Gremlins 2: The New Batch is an amazing display of puppetrynand creature effects. These Gremlins simply look awesome; the puppets seem fullnof life, Kudos to the puppeteers behind these creatures.

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nFinally, what makes this film so fun for me is that specialnbrand of Joe Dante humor. There’s this unique kind of humor to his films thatnalways puts a smile on my face.  Dante’snlove for WB cartoons is very present here; the film even starts out with BugsnBunny and Daffy Duck fighting for the spotlight! All of Dante’s films areninfused with this goofy, cartoony nature of the WB cartoons. This is after allnthe director behind Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003). Many of Dante’s filmsnhave some kind of reference to these old WB cartoons; they were obviously anhuge part of his upbringing. Final word? This is a fun film, it moves at a fastnpace, something is always happening on the screen and well, Dante really upsnthe ante ;  on this one we get morenGremlins than ever! The film has awesome monster effects, things get slimy andnnasty, if you love those films from the 80’s that were always filled withnslimy, gooey creatures, then this is the film for you. You’ll also find thenhuge amount of cameos entertaining, Christopher Lee,  Rick Ducommun, John Astin, Leonard Maltin, evennHulk Hogan makes an appearance. Just don’t expect much of a story, this filmnplays out more like a series of gags one after another, still, this doesn’tnmake it any less entertaining, Gremlins 2: The New Batch though not superior then the original, is a worthy sequel innmy book.

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nRating: 4 out of 5 

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