Gila!

A choo choo train and a big lizard or two or three and an exclamation point in the title. Some 35 year old teenagers and some really good special effects make for a great movie. They could not get Matt Damon or Justin Bieber so they went with what's his name and the guy from the movie about the thing.

The monster is well done with CGI or whatever. Some great old rock and roll fifties hit songs and lots of very nice vintage cars. The steam locomotive looks legit but I do not know.

In one scene there is a map of where the monster might be. It has a golf club called The Legends marked on the map. If you search that it is in Indiana.

The story is very lame but it remains fun until the end when a last laugh awaits the audience.

Looks like the budget was under one million so they did a good job giving us a potential cult flick for pennies. It usually costs much more to make something like this.

It has a jeep but it needs an airplane and maybe a military officer and a cat.

...and unfortunately, Jim Wynorski and the SyFy channel didn't know where it was...

So this movie is set in the 1950's, which mean every character is a bad 1950's cliche. They got ahold of someone's vintage auto collection, as long as none of them appear to get wrecked, because you know anyone who owns one of these cars isn't going to wreck on for a SyFy movie.

The weakest part is the Gila Monster itself. Unlike the 1950's movie, which used an ACTUAL Gila Monster, no Gila Monsters actually were used in this film. Instead, they use some of the *worst* CGI I've ever seen. It meets the same fate. As it's 1950's counterpart.

Is there a reason for this movie. It's not funny enough to be a parody, and not lovingly referential enough to be a homage.

The acting was horrible, the special effects were horrible, the plagiarism of the original was horrible. Only good things about this film were seeing the old cars and finding out that Don Sullivan (Chase in the original) is still above-ground.

Seriously, I love bad monster movies - things like Killer Shrews, the Giant Claw, and the Beast of Hollow Mountain. I love newer campy monster movies, too, but this was just a complete waste of time.

If you want to watch a movie about a giant lizard and have seen Lake Placid too many times, then watch the original Giant Gila Monster from 1959. The acting (for the most part) is much better, they used a live lizard and miniatures (so there's no awful CGI), and hey, it's original, not plagiarized!

People missing and if you keep your eyes open you will know why. Will the authority's figure this out before you become Gila-chow? Kibitz if you like but they will not listen.

Ooey gooey Gila! (2012) is a cute remake of The Giant Gila Monster (1959). This movie was made in the era of campy remakes of favorite 50s movies. We get the theremin music for the monster and lots of oldies on the radio for ambiance. You may not recognize the actors but they are old hands at 50s era type and monster-like movies. There are lots of campy statements. We get autos of the era. At one point a deputy (Kelli Maroney) uses a six-shooter to shoot about 11 shots.

One character exclaims, "Next time people tell me pigs can fly, damn I am going to believe them"

I've been disappointed lately with all the movies I've watched and that includes much of my collection of 50's sci-fi movies, most of which are B-movies. Even with the nostalgia factor factored in I haven't enjoyed them like I used to. Historically, I love big monster movies, new and old. So I decided to watch this one hoping it wouldn't disappoint... and it didn't.

The best thing about it was the soundtrack - classic 50's rock; no covers, all original artists.

The movie is very low budget with the special effects about 20 years behind the times but they are serviceable. A plus for the ancient CGI in this movie is that sometimes it's used cleverly, I won't give any spoilers but the old maxim holds true here "it's not what you got but how you use it".

The actors are hit and miss, some are competent and others marginal. The plot... your basic rebel teens help save a small town from an environmentally overgrown lizard. The dialog is surprisingly intelligent and clever and a much higher cut above low budget movies.

The bottom line is if you like 50's sci-fi and big monster movies then give it a look.