Gremlins / Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Now Playing: (1984/1990, Joe Dante) [seen on DVD]
These viewings, the first time I've seen either in years, were occasioned by the upcoming release of Dante's Hollywood comeback vehicle, Looney Tunes: Back in Action. And on the basis of these two films anyway, I'd say Dante is uniquely suited to this project. Both films have a kind of cartoony mayhem to them owes a debt to Chuck Jones and company, which may have been what I liked about them when I was younger. Now, years later, I still dig them, but the first has aged better than the second in my opinion. Maybe that's because the original film had a real human element to it, even if it did feel cribbed from old Capra movies (the small town, the eccentric dad, the middle-class kids in love, etc.), whereas the second film is pretty much all cartoon violence. Dante also has a pretty warped sense of humor, which balances out all the mawkish and/or cutesy stuff in the first film (Phoebe Cates' Christmas tragedy monologue is a highlight because it's sad if taken seriously and hilarious if taken as a sick joke), but is pretty much all that drives the second movie. The first installment of the film has more depth upon further viewing than it did to a kid watching it in his friends' basement, since there is an anti-consumerism subtext (Mogwais are like kids who love stuff, Gremlins are like greedy adults, all the destruction takes place on Christmas Eve) to the film that understandably flies over the heads of the young. I guess that's in the second film too, but it's not very subtextual. What the second movie is is a long cartoon, which is a cool idea and can be fun to watch, but which is really tough to sustain for a long period of time, no matter how many references to old movies you include. Plus while I can understand why Dante would want to make Gizmo suffer so much here (he wants to put the cuteness of the first movie behind him, plus set up his transformation into Rambo at the end) it's all a bit too mean-spirited for my taste. To create something as cute (even to me) as Gizmo and then subject him to all sorts of harm- that's pretty sick, dude.

Gremlins: A-.
The New Batch: B.