What the culture of the 80s last century has been around for a long time fashionable in the seventh art it is obvious. The reason given is that both advertising and film creatives and the larger audience for whom their efforts are directed lived their childhood or early youth at that time; and they remember it with nostalgia.
A pounding nostalgia with filmic metalanguage, as they usually pay homage to mythical films of the time such as ET the alien (Steven Spielberg, 1982), The goonies or Return to the future (Richard Donner, Richard Donner, 1985). And, among such celluloid myths, there is also Gremlins (Joe Dante, 1984), which had only one sequel in the last year of this mythologized decade: Gremlins 2: The Next Generation (Dante, 1990), which far exceeds the original feature film, although saying so can be considered heresy.
Joe Dante, a filmmaker in the doldrums
Long ago its director nor is in the spotlight nor is it reported on what film projects he is dedicated to. His resume includes other works that moviegoers are familiar with, such as Piranha (1978), Howls (nineteen eighty one), On the edge of reality (1983), The prodigious chip (1987), Thou shalt not kill … the neighbor (1989) or Little Warriors (1998). Then, for some unknown cause, Joe Dante has fallen into utter irrelevance.
Not that his work as a filmmaker deserves much praise, but always surprise the decay of a filmmaker who has been in the front row. Own Gremlins it raised more than 148 million dollars in the planetary box office, that would suppose today about 403 adjusting the numbers according to the inflation; and was the third in world grossing of its year, after The Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Ivan Reitman, Spielberg, 1984).
The later work a by Joe Dante encompasses the film Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), an episode of CSI: New York (Anthony E. Zuiker, Ann Donahue, and Carol Mendelsohn, 2004-2013), a pair of Masters of Horror (Mick Garris, 2005-2007), ten of Hawaii 5.0 (Peter M. Lenkov and Alex Kurtzman, 2010-2021), another of MacGyver (Lenkov and Paul Downs Colaizzo, 2016-2021) and one more Legends of Tomorrow (Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim and Phil Klemmer, since 2016).
The outrageous and hilarious satire of ‘Gremlins 2’
But some viewers could not be more grateful to him for having given us the continuation of Gremlins. The first adventure is revealed as a naughty monster movie, written by the lavish Chris Columbus (Mrs. Doubtfire) and with a certain grace, parodies of customs and other long and iconic or frankly ridiculous scenes.
But Gremlins 2 It is a very different proposition both in its intentions and its scope; and it stands tall on its predecessor as a wild and hilarious satire of modern Western society, and as the most elaborate composition of Joe Dante. His superior ingenuity in successive comic or terrifying situations, who immerse themselves recklessly in the pure spirit of the Warner Brothers Kaffir cartoons (with the reputed Chuck jones for animated sequences), and the captivating delirium of the gremlins custom are second to none.
Chris Columbus had a very good idea imagining these insane creatures, but it was the screenwriter Charles S. Haas (TRON) who has unleashed his full potential in the follies of Gremlins 2. Even composer Jerry Goldsmith (Planet of the Apes) surpasses himself with one of his most outstanding scores, pregnant with very satisfactory details that optimize what had already been offered in the soundtrack of Gremlins.
And they repeat Zach Galligan (Star Trek: Voyager) and Phoebe Cates (Secret ties) as the protagonists, Billy Peltzer and Kate Beringer, very well accompanied by John Glover (In the mouth of fear), Robert Prosky (Death penalty), Robert Picardo (Those wonderful years) and even the great Christopher Lee (The Lord of the rings) as Daniel Clamp, Fred, Forster and Dr. Cushing Catheter. An enthusiastic cast for that the frenzied and crazed wonder What is it Gremlins 2: The Next Generation.