And in his beady little eyes we could reader murder, murder, murder! … she wrote.
Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999) is finally the next progression in this franchise: Gamera is not portrayed by a guy in a rubber suit, but is full-on CGI.
And this makes for a grim, grim giant turtle. It doesn’t help that he’s (insert gender controversy here) apparently a rather clumsy protector of humanity, as a teenager named Ayana claims her parents were stomped by our kaiju in a previous battle in Gamera: Guardian Of The Universe (1995). Now an orphan, she discovers an abandoned temple near her home. Protected by one of the local families, but perhaps without much competence, she breaks in and removes the stone egg she finds, even as, a hundred miles away, Gamera battles and destroys several Gyaos.
The egg hatches, a monster emerges and is named Iris by Ayana after her dead cat (no doubt also stomped by our wayward turtle). It absorbs the girl Ayana, along with her memories and bitterness, and soon it appears to be a sort of Uber-Gyaos, a vision that, in the way it was self-lit, reminded me of the jaegers of Pacific Rim (2013). Extended battles between it and Gamera commence, Gamera suffers the usual indignities, but eventually wins its fight.
But it’s a grim war, with characters we know dying and the government mistaking Gamera as the enemy. It’s an adult story, really, not a child’s tale, and especially not a Western’s child’s fable. It’s well-acted and feels like a move into the modern era of monster movies, but it’s also a little chilling. It makes me glad we don’t have monstrous turtles stomping the landscape for real.
