Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Maybe it was too self-referential in 1990. Maybe it was too overdone, too anarchic. Maybe it had no heart, which it definitely does not have the third time I've witnessed "Gremlins 2." Maybe its corporate satire and its arrows fired at Donald Trump were too hit and miss. Whatever it was in my 1990 screening doesn't translate today, not the same way. "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" is not really a sequel - it is Joe Dante's frenzied (and anarchic) idea of a sequel. He turns the whole film into a Warner Brothers cartoon and a self-referential one at that, with slings and arrows fired at everything from Rambo to Busby Berkeley musicals to the concerned parents who witnessed the carnage of the first film to even film critics! It is messy, sometimes counterproductive, sometimes quite inspired and other times downright flat.
Good old goodie-goodie two shoes Billy Peltzer is back (Zach Galligan, not quite in his element here) and Kate, his love interest (Phoebe Cates, more in her element this time around), and they are living in New York City and working for the fictional Clamp industries. Clamp is Donald Trump with a sly touch of arrogance (wonderfully played with precise comic timing by John Glover) - everything is a money decision but he does believe in ideas and harkening back to the good old days of nostalgic places like Kingston Falls. In good old Chinatown, the antique Mr. Wing (Keye Luke) has died and furball Gizmo has escaped the old antique store since it is being destroyed by Mr. Clamp to make room for ritzy shops and the like. Gizmo is taken by associates of Dr. Catheter (Christopher Lee) who runs a science lab in the Clamp high-rise! Before you know it, water droplets have penetrated Gizmo and we get a whole new round, or batch, of Mogwais who are predictably nasty, evil critters before they predictably become murderous, ravenous and pop-culture minded gremlins.
There is too much activity in "Gremlins 2," so much that it may be difficult to keep with all of the characters. There is a tired TV horror host (Robert Prosky); a sprightly cooking show host (Kathleen Freeman); Gedde Watanabe as an obsessed cameraman; the return of the Futterman couple (Dick Miller and Jackie Joseph) who were previously terrorized by those monsters; the underrated Haviland Morris as a thick-New-York-accented Marla (modeled on you know who), Billy's boss, and the one and only film critic Leonard Maltin who gives his review of "Gremlins" only to be attacked by them. There is a greatly funny cameo by Hulk Hogan (the second time he played himself in a sequel, the first being "Rocky III") in a scene that led to groans from the audience when I saw it, thinking the film was actually burning when in fact the film reels were being mangled by gremlins. A lot of this gets in the way of having any genuine care in the world about any of the characters, and that includes Gizmo who is practically shut out of the movie only to re-appear and mimic Rambo with a flaming arrow. Talk about contrived.
The scaly gremlins steal the show, especially when one becomes a Brain Gremlin (after ingesting a chemical that makes him talk like Tony Randall). The musical numbers are side-splittingly funny and the movie, despite huffing and puffing its way at the beginning, is generally fun (love the Bat Gremlin that is killed in a very inspired touch). Director Joe Dante infuses a lot of chaos in this but not much in the way of spirit within the chaos. It is not a joyless sequel by any means, but sometimes it is stiff and far too unrelenting. Billy and Kate strike me as a boring couple and whatever cute romance was developing in the original is muted here. Donald Glover knows what movie he's in and so does Haviland Morris and had the movie abandoned Billy and Kate's characters completely (sorry "Gremlins" fans) and focused on this corporate twosome, this might have shaped itself as a far more inspired and savvy satire than it ends up----ahhhhhhh, I am being attacked by these things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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