Episode 49: Gremlins 2 - The New Batch
Justin:
In preparing to write this, I went back and looked at what I wrote after watching the first GREMLINS film last December and there was one line in particular that stood out:
“GREMLINS is the prime example of the idea that in a brainstorm, there are no bad ideas. Just throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. And unlike so many movies that also try to do that, nearly every single thing that’s thrown in this movie sticks and holds.”
If I do say so myself, that’s a pretty solid take on the first film but impressively, it’s even more accurate about GREMLINS 2 - THE NEW BATCH!
What can I say? I’m ahead of my time.
It sums up the insanity of the sequel and the absolutely everything-goes mentality that Joe Dante and his crew brought to its creation. To then find out after watching the movie that Key & Peele did a sketch about the brainstorm room for this movie and then to watch their own genius of re-enacting what can’t be too far off from what actually happened… Well that only proved that I was wise beyond my years last December. It definitely appears as if there wasn’t a single “bad idea” in the bunch. Sure, they don’t all work. But man, did they try them all!
I respect and admire the balls this group of creators seems to have. They got a big-ass budget and went to town with it, making something so absurd and so wild and yet for some reason couldn’t ride the wave of its predecessors’ popularity. But the sheer audacity that this movie has is unrivaled by very few out there and I am absolutely grateful for it and in the bag for it. Give me all of the fourth-wall-breaking by way of wrestlers, genius gremlins doing hard-hitting news interviews, and asshole smart buildings with no filter whatsoever. I’ll take it all.
