Gremlins 2: The New Batch

After the great success of Gremlins it was rather inevitable that a sequel would be spawned, with even more whacked out and even more Gremlins... of course the bonus of more advanced effects meant that the Gremlins would be even more mobile than they were in the original. I and Mr Southall thought the film was pretty hilarious in some places, even though it is almost completely devoid of plot, common sense and quite a few of the other pre-requisites for great cinema. However, Joe Dante is so great at completely absurd comedy that it works and is very funny... if you like that kind of thing. Of course, having Robert Picardo in it always helps. Jerry Goldsmith was of course dragged in screaming to do the score... OK, I can't prove that... in fact I should imagine that Jerry was more than happy to score this film since it gives him a chance to use all the stupid synth effects that they just wouldn't let him use in The Omen. Yes, Gremlins 2 is scattered with many stupid noises, synth effects as well as the orchestra doing its thing. This is not serious music by any stretch of the imagination, but it is wildly entertaining. The original Gremlins theme is reused, of course, but in a much better orchestral/synth techno funk mix than the original which I always felt didn't quite work entirely synthesised. A secondary mutate offspring of the Gremlins theme is used as a pre-cursor to the main theme coming in and for that it works just fine. Of course the rather lovely theme for Gizmo appears again too, although not very frequently (a shame since I think it's one of Jerry's most endearing themes).

Most of the underscore consists of absurd action motifs with car horns, strange synth noises and basically anything odd that Jerry thought he could get away with. I always get the feeling that Jerry and Joe Dante must have hours of fun sitting at the spotting session saying things like '...and I think there should be a boinging noise to signify the heroism of the moment.' Taking everything very seriously when in fact it's compeltely ludicrous. There are a few above the usual level of strange moments, Teenage Mutant Gremlin features synth saxaphone motif which sounds like it was ripped off from an 80's video game. Keep it Quiet has moments that sound just like Rambo, and Gremlin Pudding's last 20 or so seconds are taken up with a stoic fanfare that just appears from out of nowhere. No Rats is only titled that way since Mr Goldsmith makes his full acting debut as 'Yoghurt Customer' - another missed opportunity at the Academy Awards, Jerry sadly didn't win 'Best Supporting Actor' - a scandelous oversight to be sure. The voters really did miss out big time that year. Anyway, back to the review... the end titles features a full version of the Gremlins theme with a medley of all the other themes very well organised into a perfect Gremlins suite and rounding out the most ludicrous action score in the history of the world, perhaps.

Should you plonk down your Euros (just to show I'm as up to date as the next man) for this title? Well, go on, you know you want to. Until the original Gremlins gets a decent CD release (more than the 15 minutes it was originally afforded), this is a pretty decent substitute, although like the film, it seems to enjoy being silly for the sake of it, at least the original had themes that were silly, but matched the onscreen performances... who could forget Mrs Deagle's theme... soon to be transposed for full orchestra and turned into a symphony. I certainly wouldn't live without it, but then I like silly scores and it is by Jerry Goldsmith who, even when writing utter tosh, manages to scrape together something decent. Not that this is bad, but many may be put off by how dumb the whole thing is and then feel guilty for having enjoyed it. I'd give it 4 personally, but from a slightly more level headed reviewer point of view and compared to Jerry's vast body of infinitely superior work, it perhaps doesn't warrant much more than an average score.