Well, it's time for another look at a Mildly Contested Sequel--and it's certainly one that's different. Some sequels choose merely to mimic what came before. Others choose to be drastically different in tone and story, for better or worse. A rare few choose to upend the table, snort a lot of unidentifiable substances, and then look up with a massive demented grin on their face. And here's one of them!
I've talked about Gremlins before, touching on this sequel then--it's an enjoyable little flick, though I don't think it's quite as classic as some eighties kids make it out to be. Still, it took a few years for a followup to get going, and I get the sneaking suspicion that director Joe Dante decided that the first had already hit its potential peak as a concept. So, with that, he evidently to have some fun and go completely nuts. The film makes its intentions completely crystal clear transparent when it starts off with a friggin' Looney Tunes short--at this point, you're welcome to get off, or buy the ticket and ride the ride.
The film starts a bit mild--it's a few years after the first, and Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan) and his girlfriend Kate (Phoebe Cates) have apparently taken up office jobs in a hi-tech New York skyscraper owned by a Mr. Clamp (John Glover). And yes, Clamp is basically a take on late 80s Donald Trump by way of Ted Turner. He was going to more of a capitalistic asshole in the script, and a few lines of dialogue still lean that way, but Glover's performance lead them to soften the character a bit. We do have everyone's favorite Star Trek Voyager cast member Robert Picardo as a supervizor constantly hounding poor Billy, who's stuck in the thrilling world of juggling departmental politics and his love life.
Thankfully, that's not what the film decides to dwell on. No, it eventually cuts to the chase when, by reasons suitably contrived, Billy's old pet Mogwai ends up in the building and soon goes through the rigmarole of being sploshed by water. Icky Gremlins soon spawn from this, and here we can see how hugely improved the puppets are from the somewhat rubbery ones in the first--these glistening, detailed little critters really do look alive, and the Jim Henson team deserves full props for the huge variety among them.
But that's not all. You see, the skyscraper hosts a genetics lab run by Christopher Lee, of all people. Which just happens to have racks and racks of mutagenic chemicals just lying around, just as genetics labs do. The little lunatics start chugging down on them and it gets even better from there, as the puppet team gets to embrace the ensuing lunacy with spider gremlins, bat gremlins, and the best one of them all, the brainy gremlin, voiced by Tony Randall. Every moment this glasses-wearing slimy mastermind is on screen, pontificating about New York entertainment one moment and then shooting an annoying snotball the next, is enough to make me spit my coffee.
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| Still a more welcome sight on TV than Simon Cowell. |
Once the gremlin horde is loose and wreaking havoc on the heavily automated skyscraper, the film still keeps a pretence of a plot up, but it's all rather secondary right now. Anyone's who grappled with revolving doors and overengineered office gizmos crammed in by management with more cash than a sensible grasp of actual employee needs will find the mayhem caused absolutely gleeful. Not only that, but we have the hilarity of the gremlins taking over the stock market (and probably being more sensible about it then your average broker), and, a favorite moment of mine, even interrupting Leonard Maltin reviewing the first movie to mock and torture him. Yup, the little bastards are as eager to destroy the fourth wall as actual walls, even 'interrupting' the movie itself somehow. By this point, if you aren't just rolling with it, well it's your own fault for not getting off earlier.
It's that completely anarchic, 'here's what we're doing and screw you if you don't like it' attitude that you still very rarely get in a mainstream flick that makes me enjoy Gremlins 2. Sure, it becomes a complete silliness parade, but you know what, it's done with enough gusto and technical proficiency that I can dig it. The human cast is still fun (Dick Miller returns as a grouchy old guy despite heavily implied to have died in the first, because hey he's fun, we want him back, got a problem with that?) for the most part, and you can still get a grin from seeing Picardo being tormented by icky puppets.
Overall, Gremlins 2 is not exactly what I would call a fine exhibition of masterful cinematic taste...but screw it, I always have fun watching it. It's a mildly contested sequel I not only like, but actually prefer over the original, for just going all-in with demented fun. There's too many deranged goofball moments I like, from movie parodies that range from classic horror to even the first Gremlins itself, to a musical number involving hundreds of scaly muppets. It's not a film for everyone, but if you just want to shed some sanity for an hour and a bit, well, this is a good an opportunity for that as any.
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