Gamera the Brave2006

79/100 While the Heisei trilogy aimed to reinvent Gamera, this movie instead tries to bring him back to his roots. As a result, this one basically feels like the best of both worlds, while still carving out its own unique niche through its child-friendly tone, while still having room for menace. Like most Showa era movies, this one follows a young boy, here named Toru. The heart of the movie is Toru's relationship with Gamera, here named Toto, and its easily the best part of the movie. The movie takes a while to get going, but I almost don't mind because the drama here is genuinely compelling and feels weirdly grounded for a Kaiju movie. Not only does Toru's drama, losing his mom and trying to patch up his relationship with his dad while developing a bond with Toru, stay strong, but other characters also have their moments. Another strong one is Mai, who's problem with heart surgery is more slowly hinted at before affecting the plot. It's slow for sure, but the end result is worth it. This film also has fantastic effects, the height of which is the villain Zedus, with a great design that's executed equally as well. The film's greatest strength, though, is its childlike sense of imagination, best demonstrated through the scene where Gamera's "lucky charm" is transported to him through a relay of kids. Weirdly enough, the monsters themselves are kind of the worst part of this movie. The action itself is mostly fine, but that's more a case of the whole being greater than the parts. To start, I kind of don't like Gamera here. He's used in the narrative well, but his design is too cutesy and innocent. Whenever the film wants us to take him seriously or showcase him being awesome, its just bizarre to watch, especially after G3 treated us to one of the best Gamera designs ever. Zedus suffers from the opposite problem. As I mentioned before, he's one of Gamera's best-designed foes, and I even like how unlike other Kaiju, there's no attempt to explain his origin. He's here, he's eating people, he needs to go down and that's all we need to know. However, the movie also is uninterested in giving him a concrete personality, or anything else to make him interesting. He's kind of evil and sadistic as usual, but not enough to be fun here, resulting in one of Gamera's weaker opponents. However, this movie's not bad by any means. This movie is the last Gamera movie ever released, and I think that's a bit bittersweet. We got what worked in both series combined for one final outing, and then Gamera flew off into the sunset. There is that Netflix show, and maybe we'll get another movie someday, but until then, all I have to say is...さようなら, ガメラ.