Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999) Review

Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999) Review

For a brief time, Gamera was the preeminent giant monster in Japanese cinema. Godzilla had been given a break the same year Gamera made his epic return in Guardian of the Universe, then Gamera came back again for Attack of Legion, and in 1999 he came back for a third film, Revenge of Iris, which happened to be the same year Godzilla returned, in Godzilla 2000 (one of my favourite Godzilla movies). The Heisei era for Gamera started off on the right foot, and quickly found its stride. The third film more than lives up to the previous two films, and for many Gamera fans it is not only the best Gamera film, but one of the best monster movies of all-time. I think that praise is a little excessive, but let’s get into the good and the not so good of this trilogy-capper.

So, who is Iris, and what is Iris getting revenge on? Well, the alternate title is Awakening of Iris, which I think is a little more accurate. We begin with the return of Gyaos, then flash back to 1995, when Gamera first saved Japan from the Gyaos invasion. A pre-teen girl’s parents and cat (named Iris) are killed in the destruction caused by Gamera fighting Gyaos, and she has held a strong hatred of Gamera in her heart ever since. Japan is starting to question whether or not they should trust Gamera to save them after he causes a massive amount of destruction and inadvertently kills thousands of people when defending Tokyo from a new Gyaos attack in modern day. Meanwhile, the orphan girl discovers an egg in a cave that hatches into a new monster, which she names Iris, and it absorbs her Gamera animosity, which becomes a problem when it grows to the size of Gamera and poses an even bigger threat to Japan than Gyaos or Legion before it. Having a young girl as one of the main characters makes it feel a bit more like the Gamera films of old, what with those films typically having young protagonists. Despite that tangential connection, this movie is really nothing like the silliness of the Showa era.

Gamera 3 goes even darker than the last one, and has some of the most shocking kaiju moments from the entire series. Gamera has never matched up to the darkest entries of the Godzilla series, but Revenge of Iris gets close. Gamera is still heroic, but many of the low angle shots make him look more intimidating than he did in Gamera 2, and the brief glimpses we get of an evil-looking Gamera in black-and-white flashbacks are superbly creepy. There’s a moment when a Gyaos is being destroyed by Gamera and his eye is hanging out of its socket, which is pretty gross, and the monster Iris sucks the life force out of people, turning them into shriveled zombie-looking corpses. Despite the scary stuff, the story and overall vibe go back to the more spiritual nature of Guardian of the Universe, and it’s a more personal story than Attack of Legion. Some of the characters who were in the previous two films return, which adds a level of satisfaction to this movie in wrapping up the story started in Guardian of the Universe and giving further finality to the trilogy.

Iris is an interesting monster, but after the inventiveness and sheer gravitas of Legion in the previous movie, it doesn’t quite live up. Legion was a lot to live up to, but it’s not just the fact that Iris is entirely CGI in many shots. The Iris design is a bit like a mix of Gyaos and Legion with some tentacles added in. The CGI is better than in Gamera 2, but it’s still not as good as the suitmation and miniatures, which are all once again perfectly executed. The build-up of Iris being discovered, hatching, growing, and becoming threatening is well done, and Gamera’s fight with the Gyaos early in the film is great, but then the middle of the film slows down, and this is where it loses me a bit. We don’t get to see Gamera very much (definitely not as much as in Guardian of the Universe or even Attack of Legion), and this movie runs a bit longer than the last two, so the Gamera-free middle drags, but then the final battle between Gamera and Iris is epic and fantastic, with some gruesome combat, though the fights overall pale in comparison to the previous two movies.

Even though I think this movie has some flaws and weak parts, it’s so stylishly shot and so ambitious that it outshines the first film in the trilogy, to me, and I find a big part of the appeal is how it follows up everything that was set up in the first (and second) film, though there’s one aspect to that which I don’t love. I find the return of Gyaos a little unsatisfying because it feels too obvious that they’re just trying to connect this movie to the first movie by including the same threat in addition to the new one. It would’ve been nice to see another new monster or a different monster from the Showa era get the same kind of re-introduction and redesign. Why were the Gyaos a problem for such a brief time in 1995 then they waited four years to suddenly return in great numbers to take over the world? That being said, I find the focus on Iris diminishes the issue, though.

Despite a lack of Gamera and a dull middle, Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris is still a great Gamera movie, and a solid ending to the Heisei trilogy. It doesn’t end 100 % conclusively, but isn’t really a cliff hanger ending. It kind of makes me wonder if they had plans for a fourth film in the Heisei era that never came to be, although the way it ends with the title card over a background of flames reading “Gamera 1999: The Absolute Guardian of the Universe” is a pretty epic way to conclude. Whatever the case, it was only seven years later that Gamera returned in a brand-new reboot.