[Movie 316 / Day 335]
After the success of GREMLINS, it was decided that a sequel would make plenty of money and so in due course, one got the green light. Rumour has it that director Joe Dante said he’d only do it if he could do whatever he wanted.
What he wanted, apparently, was to take the original formula of horror-comedy, remove much of the horror and pump it full of slapstick and farce. As such, the movie is a poor relation to the original. Where GREMLINS felt fresh, this feels hackneyed. It starts off strongly, with Billy now working for a massive company in their skyscraper headquarters. Via a series of coincidences, he ends up with Gizmo hidden in his desk drawer. Unfortunately, a janitor comes along to fix a drinking water fountain just as Gizmo decides to pop his head out and have a look around. You can probably see where this is going.
Eventually, we have a whole skyscraper full of the evil Gremlins, some of whom are mutated thanks to Christopher Lee and his freaky science lab – one is half spider, one can talk, one is made of electricity, etc. Also in the skyscraper are a whole bunch of TV studios which give rise to lots of comedic situations for the Gremlins to pop up in, including a fair few in-jokes.
Overall though, it just doesn’t work as well as the original thanks to the totally different feel of the movie. It’s amusing in places, but it too frequently borders on the ridiculous for my taste.
My Rating: 
[ IMDB rating: 6.0 / 10 | IMDB link | Running time: 106 mins | Buy it! ]
