- Directed by Sean McNamara
- Written by Michael Angeli
- Starring
- Devin Oatway
- Johna Stewart
- Stephen Macht
- Time Winters
As always, it’s hard to review a movie aimed at kids, because I’m not exactly the target audience. Sure, I could judge them by how I, a calendar adult, react to them — but that’s not entirely fair, is it? I mean, I can’t stand to sit through an entire episode of Blue’s Clues, but I also realize (from the reactions of my three-year-old) that it’s also an entirely appropriate show for that age group. I’m just not the target audience. (Don’t worry, folks; I still hate Barney with a passion, and don’t let my kids watch him.)
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Okay, it’s not a bad movie, but I think any Hamlet allusions would be waaaay too pretentious. |
So I never know how harsh to be on a movie like this one, but I can tell you this: Its conscious nod to kaiju movies is a definite plus.
Davin (Devin Oayway) is a fourteen-year-old with the standard movie problems: A lack of self-confidence and a need to find his place in the world. Unlike most of his demographic, though, Davin is also prince of the kingdom of Donnigold, which means that his anxieties manifest when he’s forced to put on a public display of jousting against his dad, King Henryk (Sean McNamara, the director). Henryk is a friendly, understanding, almost ridiculously progressive sort for a medieval kingdom; for instance, he plans to free the province of Lovania, whose ethnically-separate citizens are demonstrating for independence. This leniency, on the other hand, doesn’t sit well with his right-hand man, the black-clad knight El El (see-him-everywhere character actor Stephen Macht), who favors ruling with an iron fist. In fact, El El’s so pissed he poisons the king’s jousting wound and “kindly” takes control of the kingdom while Davin mourns.
Davin, though, has an ace in the hole, though he doesn’t know it; before his death, Dad passed on the family icon — Galgameth, a small black dragonish statue whose likeness appears on the family court of arms. On his father’s death, Davin weeps while holding the figure, and his tears fall on it; the next morning, he’s awakened by a forced-perspective dwarf in a monster suit who sounds like the Hamburglar. Sure, he’s only six inches high, but he’s fiercely devoted to Davin. And he eats metal.
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Danny DeVito. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Twins, separated at birth… |
Unfortunately, Galgameth’s presence spurs Davin out of his bedroom for the first time since dad’s death, where he discovers the mayhem that El El has been wreaking in the meantime (high taxes and forced conscription for the Lovanians, plus turning all dogs out of the palace). El El takes off the kid gloves and sends Davin to the prison outside the palace, but Galgameth follows, and here’s where his tendency to eat metal serves him well; not only can he eat handcuffs, locks, etc., but he grows as he eats — which mean that soon, instead of being a dwarf in forced perspective, he’s a dwarf walking around the set.
Davin and Galgameth make their way to Lovania to hide out, and naturally fall in with a crowd of locals who bless Henryk and curse Davin’s name (thus Davin adopts the name of “John”). The kindly natives protect him from a contingent of soldiers looking for the prince, and Davin starts to get chummy with the cute barmaid Julia (Johna Stewart), so that when the entire bar-full of Lovanians get captured and carted off to the executioner’s block, Davin and Galgameth leap to the rescue, and Galgameth eats enough metal (including the executioner’s axe) to make it to the next level, i.e., he’s no longer a cutesy dwarf, but a rather fierce-looking eight-foot creature.
The rescued prisoners join with the for-real rebel army, who realize that Galgameth can be a formidable weapon, especially if he keeps growing as he eats. The contrive to get him into a royal armory, allowing him to get into the 30-foot range (i.e., allowing him to tromp around on miniature sets), and further.
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Well, it looks like SOMEBODY on this side of the Pacific got to see Godzilla vs. Destroyer in a timely manner. |
But El El hasn’t been sitting idle. In addition to having a Chinese work crew forge a cannon for him (hey, I didn’t know that cannonballs explode into flames on impact!), he’s heard the rumors of the metal-eating beast, and he’s searching methodically for the details of the cryptic comment in the royal history regarding Galgameth: That it can only be destroyed “by that which brings it to life.”
Along the way, Davin has to learn swordplay and all those other heroic arts that he so strenuously avoided, as well as face up to the guilt he feels over supposedly killing his father, and finally gain a modicum of courage. Oh yeah, and he gets the girl.
There’s nothing really original in this story, but it is an interesting synthesis of a fairly standard medieval fantasy with the overused “troubled adolescent learns to be an adult through his close friendship with a ____” genre (insert your favorite: killer whale, gorilla, seal, sasquatch, dolphin, panda, orangutan, etc.). But there are some moments of inspiration in the script. When he first appears, Galgameth stoutly “defends” Davin from a couple of blackbirds that fly in the palace window. Davin tries to explain that blackbirds are harmless, and from there out “blackbird” becomes their little codeword that Davin needs help. It’s one of those clever little screenwriting things that I love so well.
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Hey, I’m the first to say that The Phantom Menace was disappointing, but I think this reaction is a bit extreme. |
The special effects are nothing special, but certainly competent; only a couple of scenes show obvious matte lines, and the rest are a well-coordinated combination of bluescreening and miniature/oversized sets. Particularly of note is how the well-coordinated the use of only two Galgameth suits allows the creature to appear in six distinct sizes.
If you’re up on your B-movie legends ‘n’ lore, you may recognize the basics of the plot as being identical to that of the much-fabled but rarely-seen North Korean kaiju epic Pulgasari. Plagiarism? Of course not! The director of the Korean movie was one Shin Sang-Ok, who later emigrated to America and changed his name to Simon Sheen (producer of the 3 Ninjas movies), and who has a story credit on this here feature. Given that a) the Stomp Tokyo guys don’t give Pulgasari very high marks (oddly enough, movies made by political detainees are rarely stellar) and b) even with it’s recent American release it’s still hard to find, you may want to satisfy yourself with The Adventures of Galgameth, available at your local Blockbuster. That’s if you really need to see a movie about a metal-eating giant monster, which is a dubious desire at best.
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Jus’ fulfilling them Kaiju Union rules, you know. |
As with most direct-to-video kid-vid fare, there’s nothing ambitious here (such as you’d see in The Iron Giant or Prince of Egypt), nor is there the high level of energy and humor you’d find in Spy Kids or either of the Toy Story movies. It is, however, an inoffensive way to spend 90 minutes, provided you’re accompanied by children. Adults alone, well, I reeeeeaally don’t think you’re the target audience (though if you watch it solo and like it, I won’t poke fun at you).
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 10
- explosions: 32
- ominous thunderstorms: 1
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 4
- Stephen Macht (El El) was “Krim” on two episodes of DS9
- Time Winters (Templeton) played “Glin Daro” in the TNG episode “The Wounded”
- Ken Thorley (Footy) played “Mr. Mott” (the Enterprise barber) on two episodes of TNG, and a seaman in the “Time’s Arrow” two-parter
- Lou Wagner (Zethar the scribe — and he was also Lucius in Planet of the Apes!) played DaiMon Solok on an episode each of TNG and DS9, plus playing “Krax” on the DS9 episode “The Nagus”
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