GAMERA THE BRAVE (2006)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological* 

I mentioned in my review of the 1990s GAMERA series that I'd seen but did not like the 2006 follow-up GAMERA THE BRAVE. Nevertheless, in the name of Totalicus, the God of Completism, I decided to revisit BRAVE once more.

There are still aspects of this kaiju flick-- the last feature-film in the Gamera series-- that still suck. The "Muppetization" of the giant turtle's standard design remains awful, and the effect would have been even worse if that appearance had successfully appeared in a Godzilla/Gamera crossover that had been in discussion between the owning studios previous to BRAVE's production. Apparently the re-design came about because some children had reacted badly to the intense events of the third 1990s film, and the studio wanted to make the big terrapin more cuddly-looking.

 As if to disavow the profitable trilogy, the studio kept the trilogy's idea that Gamera was a being more or less "programmed" to defend Earth-people against other kaiju. Yet twenty years before the events of BRAVE, the then-current Gamera is unable to best a flock of Gyaos-birds, and so blows himself up to kill them, as well as himself. A young boy named Kousuke witnesses the event, and twenty years later he's sired a grade-schooler son, Toru (Ryo Tomioka), though the boy's mother has passed away. Toru and his friends find a mysterious egg with a red stone attached to the shell, and in due time, it hatches a small turtle with strange powers. I'm not sure why neither Toru nor his friends make the connection to the deceased Gamera. One would think that even if you've never seen such a creature before, the fact that one sacrificed itself for the well-being of Japan would make a pretty big cultural impression.

The very elementary plot resorts to some cornball humor to pad out the time until the little turtle starts getting really big, and there's some slightly better drama in that protective father Kousuke doesn't want his only son getting near any destructive giant monsters, even those with protective intentions. Fortuitously, a hostile dragon-like kaiju named Zedus starts trashing Toru's town just as Baby Gamera has matured into his king-size form. The battles of New Gamera and Zedus keep the movie from being totally without suspense, but it takes a long time for the central dramatic point to manifest: that Kousuke must allow Toru to render aid to Gamera in order to stop Zedus. Said aid involves the previously mentioned red stone, though the script doesn't really explain why the deceased Gamera, who implicitly left the egg behind, also included some sort of power-stone in the mix.

The sixties Gamera films are rightfully mocked for playing to children too often, though this tendency may have lent those films a lively wackiness, thus distinguishing the big turtle's series from the competing Godzilla films of the same period. But despite a winning performance from Tomioka, who shoulders most of the movie's dramatic burden, BRAVE offers neither engaging wackiness nor the heavy seriousness of the 1990s movies. Thus BRAVE failed at the box office and essentially killed the franchise. Nineteen years later, the future doesn't look rosy for the continuing adventures of the iconic flying, flame-breathing turtle-monster.