Gargantua

I know lotsa people out there really didn't like this film, but I did. Sure, the monsters were dodgy, but the actors were fantastic. There were references to modern technology, and the characters were actual people. The death of Jack Ellway's wife was a nice touch, it made the bond between father and son more believable. The story line is well-worn and unbelievable, but the baby and the mother are alright looking monsters, I guess. Adam Baldwin's character, Jack Ellway, is a contrast to the majority of his other roles as thugs, uniformed nonities and bad guys. It's also different from his characters in ID4, Major Mitchell and in The Patriot, Capt. Wilkins. In this movie he's just a regular guy, newly widowered, doing the best he can for his son while doing his job. Emile Hirsch has a few scenes in which he isn't allowed to shine as much as he might, (like where he cuts his finger, that was noticably fake) but he is the central character and a good actor as well. Doug Penty (Paul Bateman) has been in a few TV series, such as Paradise Beach, and, while he says a few things that are overly serious for his character, he plays the laidback surfie reporter very well. (Doesn't hurt that he's also gorgeous!!) Other cast members - Julie Carmen (Alyson Hart), Alexander Petersons (Derek), Peter Adams (Dr. Hale), Monroe Reimers (President Moki) and Bobby Hosea (Colonel Wayne) - help make this movie enjoyable as well.

Yup this was a special kind of movie.

It was like Tvs Sinbad the pirate! They have lizards for monsters, but make them look bigger. That's just stupid.

But hey, the movie gave me a good laugh;o)

This movie was pretty awful but I must say that I've seen many movies that were much, much worse. Remember Jaws 4 where the shark actually ROARED?

After reaing some of these reviews I was half expecting to see Bela Lugosi pop up and say "pull da string!" I'll give it a 4 out of 10.

I was guilty of a gross error of judgement when I tuned in to 'Gargantua' (on satellite television) in an unguarded moment. I viewed with increasing disbelief as this cinematic aberration unfolded, unmatched in sheer awfulness by any contemporary sci-fi film which I have seen over the last two years. The 'design' of the 'monsters' must surely have been the product of individuals who suffered from a combination of colour-blindess and acute myopia and were in obvious need of psychiatric help. Add to this a generous helping of acting in a style which would make a cigar-store Indian seem animated,a storyline consisting of sentimentalised nonsense, a script which gives a whole new meaning to the word 'mediocre', together with special effects which appeared to pre-date Harryhausen on a bad day, then the sum total constitutes an experience never to be repeated ! I cannot believe that any rational person would be prepared to pay money to see this junk - certainly this is one to miss.

It sounds like the long-lost sequel to WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS (1967) and comes in an ALIEN-style video box, but this is actually a lame kiddie-style tele-movie that debuted on Fox.

Adam Baldwin is a widowed scientist on the Australian island of Malau with his depressed young son, where illegal DDT dumping results in a variety of mutant creatures. A cute baby salamander monster with big goo-goo eyes makes friends with the son after he feeds him cheese balls. A not-so-nice medium sized one with sharp teeth and horns follows, and a really mean giant mama monster comes searching for her babies and terrorizes the city. Naturally, the military shows up, act as dense as they usually do in these movies and blast the big one. THEN the father shows up!

I suppose that kids may like it, but the lousy dialogue and nauseating family dramatics will be a bit much for adults to stomach. FX give new meaning to the term "uneven"--the two smaller monsters (either animatronics or CG) aren't bad, but the larger ones are almost on the same level of those old Saturday Matinée GODZILLA flicks.

And the moral of the story hasn't changed--be nice to giant lizard monsters or they will stomp on you!