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It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is a great reboot of the Gamera franchise. It is a reboot, right? Please don't down vote this review if I'm wrong! Anyway, Gamera was notable in having more of its movies featured on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" than any other film series so it had a pretty bad reputation. This film on the other hand starts off a start new for Gamera as we get everything just about as realistic as you'd imagine. This movie doesn't waste too much time on the human stories. They are still good especially the girl who seems to have some psychic link with Gamera.It starts off with three flying monsters appearing along with Gamera. What's great is that two of them are in fact defeated by the humans and it really does make you glad that they take time to focus on the people because it can be so distracting with the monster fights either way. There really isn't an attempt to do anything too special or flashy. It's just a basic story that has everything you could want in Gamera. The final fight is very well paced and we get a great epilogue too. Glad to have Gamera back and better than ever. ***

"Gamera: Guardian of the Universe" is a good example of suitmation at its very best. Sure, even the most willing suspension of disbelief can't mask the fact that Gamera is a person in giant turtle suit but the miniatures are excellent, as is the destruction and pyrotechnic collateral damage that accompanies giant monsters even when they are on our side and this newer spin on the Gamera saga has the big guy squarely on our side (although the army is a bit slow on the uptake). He establishes a mystical connection with a young girl (kind of a 'new-age mutant turtle'), takes a few for the team, and fights Gyaos (ancient, giant, predatory, genetically engineered birds). The movie is much more graphic and grim than the old series: Gyoas just don't fly off trailing smoke when smote by Gamera's radioactive breath, they explode spectacularly; and, there are a number of scenes of young people on a train wearing bright green jackets, shards of which are seen hanging from Gyaos beak after some messy eating. While some of the special effects are substandard (e.g. the missiles in flight), others are extraordinary (e.g. the sunset shots of the Gyaos perched on the wrecked Tokyo Tower). The film makes an attempt at "vérité", making good use of stock military footage and has numerous reporters commenting on the events (including of the impact of monsters on the Dow Jones Industrial Average). As I have opined before in reviews, genre films like this need to be rated both internally and externally – if you are into kaiju movies, this is a solid 9; if not, it's an OK Japanese guy-in-a-suit monster movie, so maybe a 6.

I was never a fan of the original Gamera series - most of it was slow, cheap, and made for kids. In fact, it took me quite a while to get around to the new trilogy because I thought, 'heck, why would anyone want to resurrect that turkey?' well, I guess they wanted to because they saw the full potential of the big turtle that the original Gamera team somehow missed. The big turtle is interesting at all because he is not anywhere near as fearsome as his older rival Godzilla, yet he can never be anthropomorphized the way Godzilla was in the sillier early Toho films. He is always a little strange and unexpected. His very existence is an absurdity, yet in the right situation, he's exactly the kind of turtle you want fighting on your side.If that makes sense at all, then the Gamera revival trilogy is for you. This first film is big daffy fun, filled with big explosions, moments of horror, and annoying human beings who need the Tokyo Tower to be twisted into a huge vulture's nest before they get the sense of the real danger they face. And of course there's our much misunderstood turtle hero, bravely fending off a flock of giant vampire bats with over-developed tonsils. Add to this just a bit of late-20th century pop mysticism, and you have the perfect party treat.Of course they wouldn't have gotten away with it if they hadn't decided to use state-of-the-art special effects - the film looks good, and moves along quite well. As professional as the worst entries of the original series were amateurish.So if you like big daffy sci-fi monster fun, forget whatever you thought of the old Gamera, take a good look at the new, and have a good time.

This is a good, definitely 90ish monster movie alternative to the TOHO stable. As with TOHO movies in those years, screenplay writers often re-invent the origin of the main characters ( Godzilla from hero, to villain and Ghidorah from villain to hero; king Caesar from hero to villain etc ). Here Gamera is the safeguard byproduct of some long lost atlantean civilization lost to its previous genetic engineering experiment gone bad: Gyaos the giant, cannibal bird eating human beings ( a rip-off of Toho's Radon ). The rest has already been seen a dozen times. Cute teenager develops a psychic bond with Gamera to sustain its fighting; pretty ornithologist is dispatched to first identify, then capture the Gyayos (or Gaos ). There are a bunch of Gaos, but some are killed by Gamera, some eat each other and the overgrown, last one is finally destroyed by Gamera. SFX are good & 90ish. Acting isn't bad & the equilibrium of the plot must be emphasized. Unlike many other monster movies, there is equilibrium & no time is wasted with unneeded subplots, bond movie spoofs and pretentious character development. Definitely a movie you can watch twice in a row.