GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990)

After the events of Part 1, Billy and Kate have moved to NYC. They both have jobs in the high tech, high rise Clamp Tower. Their lives seem mildly happy, but as fate would have it, there happens to be a genetics laboratory in the building and who else but Gizmo is being held there!  Imagine that.  Stuff happens and Billy rescues Giz only to carelessly leave him alone in his desk.  Gizmo then decides to go exploring on his own.  Brilliant!  Naturally, he gets water splashed on him and before you can say "Mogwai penis" there's like a thousand crazy gremlins wrecking havoc all over the building. And thanks to the genetics lab these new gremlins come in all kinds of flavors: talking, spider, vegetable, electric, bat, female, etc.

GREMLINS 2 isn't as sweet or endearing as the original, instead it's more for an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek vibe.  That's okay, but in the end, Part 2 doesn't have the same magic that the original had.  It's almost like an explosion of small ideas just slapped together, whereas the original had a straightforward story with likable characters and a sweet hometown feel to it.  If I had to guess, I would say that Spielberg had less involvement with this film than the original.  As it is though, it's still an entertaining watch.

I'm still hoping for a hard R-rated Part 3.

Part 1 - Gremlins (1984)

DARK SHADOWS (2012)

Johnny Depp plays a dude who back in 1760-something ran afoul of a witch (because he loved another woman) so she killed the woman, turned him into a vampire and locked him in a coffin.  Fast-forward 200 years and the witch is now running a fish cannery in the same town.  Some construction workers come across Depp's coffin.  He promptly kills them all then heads to his family home.  They still live there, so he moves in and sets to restoring his family to their former glory.  But before he can do that he first has to deal with the psychotic witch that is still in love with him.

I've never seen the TV show, so I have no idea what purists think, but the movie was alright.  On a scale of 1 to 10 I'd give it a solid 5.  The first half of the film is kind of funny in a fish-out-of-water/ AUSTIN POWERS kind of way, but then in the last act everything gets too serious.  Is this suppose to be comedy or a serious movie with comedy elements?  I have no idea.  There's funny stuff, but then innocent people get murdered and a dad leaves his son and a house gets burned down.  Then suddenly out of nowhere one of the characters turns into a half-werewolf for no reason at all.  What the fuck?  

Attractive females all over the joint, Alice Cooper cameo, Carpenters "Top of the World" montage, 70's humor, coffin jokes, Burton stylized sets and visuals, I wanted to like DARK SHADOWS and I did like pieces of it, but as a whole it's too unfocused.  Worth a one time watch, but that's it.