Review of Gamera: The Giant Monster

From the gloriously tacky opening with the terrible American performers I was deeply up for the rough beginning to the sprawling Gamera franchise but it runs out of steam fairly quickly and the stark linearity makes it feel a great deal longer than seventy-odd minutes it is. Still, a lot of the model sequences are absorbingly intricate for the budgetary fumes it was running on at the time and I'm determined to follow the turtle on his journey from terrifying menace to friend-of-human-children. We only catch a glimpse of that here with the risibly lame" empathetic young turtle fan with concerned older sibling" subplot. Not a strong foundational stone for any franchise, but technically creative enough to be a diverting watch at the very least.