Not Underrated, Just Underdeveloped

Rating: 2/10 (10 August 2004)

It's strange how some films become not just successful, but hugely successful. Revisiting this movie recently, it's apparent that not only is it obviously dated two decades later, but it's very much a film which is remembered as being better than it is.
It requires an obvious suspension of disbelief to accept the very arbitrary rules of keeping a Mogwai (WHY does feeding it after midnight turn it into a Gremlin?) That's par for the course for a blockbuster, and not a problem in itself. The Mogwai's mechanical movement can't help but make it look fake, but we can overlook that too. The real disappointment here is that the script, having crawled somewhat in the first half, falls away in the second, almost as if the Gremlins themselves had gotten to it in their chaotic manner. Sure, we see scenes of havoc, but to what ultimate purpose? The movie got a PG rating, but the Gremlins display the kind of behavior you wouldn't want kids to associate with, especially in the rowdy bar scene, during which Phobe Cates is behind the bar, inexplicably serving them drinks when most people would have high-tailed it out of there as soon as the little devils showed up.
The film also struggles to maintain a consistent tone. Yes, it's a comedy foremost, but with some horror thrown in. The comedy doesn't entirely work, even and especially in the scenes where the monsters run amok, and the film's lack of real tension undermines any attempt at a darker quality. It is not aided in the least by the totally nondescript Zach Galligan in the leading role. He is so bland that if he didn't keep moving you would lose him in the wallpaper. Hoyt Axton is also ineffective in a stiff, monotone performance as the hapless inventor father, whereas Francis Lee McCain gets to add some beef to her role as typical American Housewife with one of the movie's best scenes as she defends her house, most notably the kitchen, from the Gremlins. Cates and Reinhold are pedestrian in their supporting roles. The writing is such that the characters pretty much sidle up to an underwhelming resolution, putting the cap on a movie that, like one of Peltzer's inventions, promises much but soon goes haywire.