Cinepals - GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990) Reaction & Review!

Episode Date: April 28, 2024

Jaby & Vivian continue on to the sequel to Gremlins, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, following the chaos that ensues when the mischievous gremlins invade a high-tech skyscraper, wreaking havoc on its occupants and leading to a comedic battle for survival.   This film stars: Zach Galligan (Hatchet III & Waxwork), Phoebe Cates (Fast Times at Ridgemont High & Drop Dead Fred), John Glover (Scrooged & Batman: The Animated Series), Robert Prosky (Mrs. Doubtfire, Dead Man Walking & Last Action Hero), and Christopher Lee (The Lord of the Rings series, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones & Dracula).   SOCIAL MEDIA: ~CINEPALS~ YouTube: @CinePals Insta: https://instagram.com/TheCinePals Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheCinePals   ~VIVIAN DAY~ Instagram: @DarlingVivling

Senna. Well, we're back for Gremlins, too. Thanks so much for returning to continue this adventure with us. We're going to jump into this. Here we go. No. No. This is Stockholm, buddy.

Right. It's Stockholm. I guess that's been a while. Men. I've been working hard. Do I have to pay? I can't believe that's where they ended the movie. Wow.

I got to say, that was more exhausting than the first one was. The first one was special. It was viscerally very traumatic. That's a great word for it is visceral. It had, yeah. Yeah. And this one, disturbing in different reasons, for sure. It was like, you know what, let's just go full-blown all the way silly.

Just maximum thrust into silliness. Like, nonsensical. Was this PG-2? I will look. Because they definitely had less... Violence? Yeah, especially on the... PG-13.

Oh. How does this one get to PG-13, but the first one is... They took notes. The audience probably was like, you cannot show children this. It wasn't as traumatic, but it was also at the same time. I'm like trying to digest and process. Okay, this makes a lot of sense.

The first one made $213 million. The second one made $41.5 off a budget of 30 to $50 million. So the second... This was a bomb, a box office bomb. Very much so. And I don't know how much the first one cost. 11 million. So the second one costs substantially more money, and it bombed.

I would imagine that the critical reception wasn't great. And maybe audiences, your parents were burned the first time around. You know, and they're like, yo, I took my kid to watch that and they were traumatized. I'm not taking them to watch Gremlins too. Right. And so. There's half the audience right there. You know, maybe there was like a disconnect in what the studio, you know,

realized and you know the actual response was so there's never a gremlin's three i didn't want to say anything the last one because i didn't want to like just go there i noticed that there was a big kind of racial thing going on okay in the first one and i was like i don't know if i'm being like woke or of my time or if i'm projecting but this feels kind of very um not cool and then when i went home after i looked it up and i was like okay there was a thing like i'm not the only one to see that. So in this one, I was kind of looking for it again. And they did change it up a bit, but then I, it still was the same for me, but a different race. So I was like, I looked it up myself, honestly. I was curious of myself after watching the movie. I'm like, it does feel like

something, but I don't know. Like, I can't tell if I'm projecting onto the movie a thing and I'm being the racist or if they like deliberately did something or what they were taking inspiration from or if it was designed to be a comment on something. Like, I couldn't tell. Honestly. like nothing was ever expressed overtly it just felt like it just felt something was like goofy in a way that it was not right well like in the um the bar scene in the first one yeah that was it there were so many characters or the gremlin characters that were like this is real people like i know i know i know who they're trying to i know i know i felt that too i was like what else is kind of not okay and then but then i'm like you know what for the time let's just you know like just

focus on the trauma of it all. Well, let's just try to have fun, I think. Exactly. So this one, less of that, but still a little bit different race this time. And I was like, okay. But. You know what's interesting is the guy who wrote Gremlin's one and two. Well, he was one of the writers on Part 2.

He, I believe, directed the first two Harry Potter films. Which one of them also had a problematic race thing. So I wanted to. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, really? Yeah, we don't have to dive into that. No, we don't. But that's interesting.

Yeah, he directed Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. This is Dante. No, no, no. Oh, sorry. Setting aside the problematic elements of the first film, I like the first one better because it just felt more focused. It's like, while it got banana town and weird in ways that didn't feel wholly necessary in that bars, like the thing didn't actually feel all that needed.

Yeah. It's like, you establish the chaos and you move on, but it like dwelled on it and it really made a whole thing about it. And it was just like, why? why? Why did you... So, that aside, the first film just felt like a clearer story. And, like, I could see the beginning, middle, and it made sense, and you knew

what you were rooting for in the story, whether it was like the subplot with the characters romance, and, you know, or the main adventure. Like, you knew what the stakes were. This was, like, all over the place. It felt like the executives or the writers got high,

and they're like, yo, how about this? And they just there were no bad ideas it's like everything was yes all the way balls to the wall how about in the middle of the movie the film dissolves and we realize we are in the movie

like it's like what and they just went with it the characters too were the what's the two main characters name the guy and the girl Billy and Kate yeah in the first movie it was believable that they were their characters this one it was way

weird like there was no dynamic He was completely clueless and aloof, and she was just like, okay, I guess I'll just take it. Their chemistry was gone, like completely gone. Well, they hardly spent any time in the film together, too, though. True, but also it was just like they lost me in their relationship there. So the guy who played the vampire, his name is Robert Proske, and he died in 2008. My first exposure to him was Last Action Hero. He's just got one of those faces like you feel like you've seen in so many things all over the place.

It's just, I was like, oh, that's that. It's that old guy from that movie. Oh, yeah, Mrs. Delfire. Exactly. He was the executive of Mrs. Delfire. Yeah. It's in everything. Brought it back.

Thank you. It's surprising how many people were involved in. Christopher Lee is like a classic theater trade actor. You see this. You know, it's just amazing to me how you see these actors who are like trained. And then they end up signing up for Gremlins too. You know what I mean? Must be their agent or, you know, their management being like, just do it.

relevant and forget about it yeah right like the rambo thing i actually admittedly enjoyed it just it felt like too much was going on if they had focused the film a little bit better i would have enjoyed it more and it's just all over the place i still had fun along the way you know it's like is it a mess is it is it nonsense yes but i did have fun and so i just got exhausted though it's after a while it kind of just wore me down like god damn what is this movie this would have been like a good tv movie where like That's probably how I saw it. Have in the background and, like, you're doing stuff. And then you, like, check in.

You're like, okay, anyway. Then, like, keep going back and forth. You know, back in the day, you know, you had those, like, trash movies sometimes. Absolutely. And I don't think you'd be lost. It's like, wherever you are, it's like, you could just pick it up, you know, 45 minutes in and you'll be all right. It just makes just as much sense, honestly. Yeah.

But I did thoroughly enjoy the Rambo bit. Yeah. I wish they played that up more. They spent way too much time with the Magua tie down. It's like. He needed to, like, find his Rambo moment way earlier and do some damage earlier because the main characters weren't doing squat. Yeah.

Like, it would have been great if he had a whole adventure onto himself of, like, executing bad guys and messing them up and shank his own. Like, I don't know how far you can take it. But, like, it got violent, you know, like that one of the gremlins got killed in the little shredder. Why not have the mogwai do some damage, you know? You took it there. Might as well take it all the way.

Yeah. No. How does he not know how to handle them more? Like, I figured we'd get more of their backstory. I was really hoping the mom would come back. But, like, yeah, Mogwai, every time this happens, he's just like, oh, here we go again. It felt like he just got pushed to his limit, you know? He's like, no more Mr. Nice guy.

Yeah. It's like, I'm done. I can't do it anymore. I let you have your fun. It's my turn. But anyway, yeah, overall, that was an experience. And we experienced it with you. So thanks so much for hanging.

Hopefully you enjoyed that revisit. Revisit for you. The only thing I... Honestly, like the only thing I... It's like watching the whole thing, I'm expecting to recall something else along the way. The elevator thing was the only thing I remembered. I must have blocked out everything else

if I'd seen the film on TV or as a kid or something. Yeah. You know, one of those things you see as a kid where you're like, oh, that's interesting. Because I didn't know if an elevator as a kid, I didn't know if an elevator fell down a shaft that you'd like fly up. Yeah.

That was my first awareness of something like that happening. Physics. Yeah. And it kind of made me curious about doing it myself. Because you could just like bounce back up. She looked just as fine. This is true. You know, afterwards.

So anyways, you guys, thanks so much for hanging with us. I'm Jabby Kauai. This is Vivian Day. Peace out. Bye.