Billy and Kate have moved to New York City, where they work for big-time tycoon Daniel Clamp in his super-futuristic skyscraper. Billy discovers that Gizmo is being held in a genetics lab in the building and rescues him but inevitably disaster strikes and soon an army of gremlins are rampaging through the building, waiting for nightfall so they can do some good old New York sightseeing. Can Billy and his friends stop them ?
This hilarious sequel doesn't really work as a dramatic movie because it sort of breaks down about halfway through into a series of completely insane scenes (like Nightbreed or Weekend). However, if you can get past that, it is one of the most gloriously satirical, goofy, eye-popping, self-deprecating, completely nutty films ever made. Dante was given a blank cheque by Warner Brothers to make a sequel and he, producer Mike Finnell and writer Charlie Haas created the closest thing to a live action cartoon, in which they take adolescent potshots at anything that sprung to mind. Its chief target is corporate big business (the Clamp building is a disaster zone where nothing works even before the gremlins start destroying it and the employees are treated like cattle) but cable TV, health food, movie sequels and critics (Leonard Maltin gets killed, woohoo !), tacky restaurants, tourism and genetic research (Christopher Lee's lab is called Splice O'Life) are all mercilessly laid into. The special effects, by the great Rick Baker, probably constitute the most amazing puppet-show ever conceived (the only contenders being Jim Henson's movies); Gizmo is incredibly expressive, walks, dances, clambers around and pulls off whole dramatic scenes by himself, and we have hundreds of standard gremlins, plus a Mohawk gremlin, a Brain gremlin, a Gargoyle gremlin, an Electric gremlin, a Giant Spider gremlin, all of whom are simply stunning. The scale of the effects work is just dazzling, as is James Spencer's incredible production design work on the Clamp building, which is alternately inspiring and horrifying, and there is a great little cartoon by Chuck Jones which bookends the movie. The large cast are adorable - no movie stars, just funny, talented actors giving their all in the face of the craziness. Galligan and Cates are great again (don't miss the bit where she spoofs her Why I Hate Christmas speech from the original), Prosky is sensational as Grandpa Fred, the caped horror-host with more serious journalistic aspirations, wild-looking orange-haired Morris gives probably the definitive yuppie performance of the era, Glover has a lot of fun playing the Donald Trump caricature as an aw-shucks Big Kid, Lee is truly wonderful as the much put-upon Dr Catheter, Picardo suffers even more indignities than usual in one of Dante's films, Keye Luke, Dick Miller and Jackie Joseph all reprise their roles from the original, and there are a whole host of great bit players, notably John Astin, Belinda Balaski, Paul Bartel, Rick DuCommun, Henry Gibson, Archie Hahn, Hulk Hogan, Kenneth Tobey and even Dante himself, as Grandpa Fred's TV director. I prefaced this review by noting that if you want to watch a regular movie you should avoid this, but it really is unmissable, for one scene in particular, where the gremlins literally break the movie and replace it with a fifties nudie-cutie. This set-piece is, in my opinion, the craziest and most daring gag I've ever seen in a movie. A riot.
This hilarious sequel doesn't really work as a dramatic movie because it sort of breaks down about halfway through into a series of completely insane scenes (like Nightbreed or Weekend). However, if you can get past that, it is one of the most gloriously satirical, goofy, eye-popping, self-deprecating, completely nutty films ever made. Dante was given a blank cheque by Warner Brothers to make a sequel and he, producer Mike Finnell and writer Charlie Haas created the closest thing to a live action cartoon, in which they take adolescent potshots at anything that sprung to mind. Its chief target is corporate big business (the Clamp building is a disaster zone where nothing works even before the gremlins start destroying it and the employees are treated like cattle) but cable TV, health food, movie sequels and critics (Leonard Maltin gets killed, woohoo !), tacky restaurants, tourism and genetic research (Christopher Lee's lab is called Splice O'Life) are all mercilessly laid into. The special effects, by the great Rick Baker, probably constitute the most amazing puppet-show ever conceived (the only contenders being Jim Henson's movies); Gizmo is incredibly expressive, walks, dances, clambers around and pulls off whole dramatic scenes by himself, and we have hundreds of standard gremlins, plus a Mohawk gremlin, a Brain gremlin, a Gargoyle gremlin, an Electric gremlin, a Giant Spider gremlin, all of whom are simply stunning. The scale of the effects work is just dazzling, as is James Spencer's incredible production design work on the Clamp building, which is alternately inspiring and horrifying, and there is a great little cartoon by Chuck Jones which bookends the movie. The large cast are adorable - no movie stars, just funny, talented actors giving their all in the face of the craziness. Galligan and Cates are great again (don't miss the bit where she spoofs her Why I Hate Christmas speech from the original), Prosky is sensational as Grandpa Fred, the caped horror-host with more serious journalistic aspirations, wild-looking orange-haired Morris gives probably the definitive yuppie performance of the era, Glover has a lot of fun playing the Donald Trump caricature as an aw-shucks Big Kid, Lee is truly wonderful as the much put-upon Dr Catheter, Picardo suffers even more indignities than usual in one of Dante's films, Keye Luke, Dick Miller and Jackie Joseph all reprise their roles from the original, and there are a whole host of great bit players, notably John Astin, Belinda Balaski, Paul Bartel, Rick DuCommun, Henry Gibson, Archie Hahn, Hulk Hogan, Kenneth Tobey and even Dante himself, as Grandpa Fred's TV director. I prefaced this review by noting that if you want to watch a regular movie you should avoid this, but it really is unmissable, for one scene in particular, where the gremlins literally break the movie and replace it with a fifties nudie-cutie. This set-piece is, in my opinion, the craziest and most daring gag I've ever seen in a movie. A riot.