Ah, so this recap is why there isn't any need to watch the first two Critters films before this one: they give you the sixty-second recap version right off the bat. Considerate!
CRITTER POV SHOT
(It's the sound effects that really sell it. You can practically hear the slobber and puppetry.)
Those critter eggs glued to the underside of the truck are disconcertingly goopy.
That alternating two-note musical theme while the shot lingered on the broken basement window sounded _very_ reminiscent of Jerry Goldsmith's work from Alien (1979), eh?
MONSTER CHOMP
First critter perforated with a screwdriver! Fortunately not fatally? Or was that second chomp one of its buddies? In any case the annoying character seems to have been fully bitten to bits at the 28 minute mark. So far so good!
And that's our first rolling critter shot too!
Hey now! Was that scene with the critter revving up and then zipping up the laundry chute the precursor to the Super Metroid morph ball dash‽
(The sound effects coming from DiCaprio's Game Boy in the car with his father do _not_ sound machine-appropriate. Game Boy games had better sound effects than that. This is slander, or possibly libel.)
MONSTER CHOMP NUMERO DEUX
Basement laundry rooms are inherently terrifying, I'm sure we can all agree.
These critter puppets remain as charming as in the first film, to be honest! Practical effects: we have no choice but to stan.
"They're big, they're huge, they're like badger-possums..."
"Rosie, calm down, you just saw a big rat!"
Yeah that checks out, the rats around this city are about the size of basketballs and at least roughly as spherical.
*a cylindrical garbage can or cigarette ash tray or whatever is rolled down the stairs, intercut with championship bowling footage and accompanied by bowling-ball sound effects; four or five critters are smacked in slow motion and fly straight up into the air*
Leaning hard into the camp this time, I see. Well, we knew into what we were getting.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are! Your landlord is here to evict you!"
Well that characterization only got worse in the intervening few decades since this film first came out. Welp this guy is definitely going to be eaten viciously in the next few scenes, to no doubt thunderous applause and approval from #monsterdon .
MONSTER CHOMP
"Let him go, he can't help being an asshole!"
(Lighting that basement with one of those dark red road flares seems like a terrible idea. Even in the open air the fumes from those things are nauseating, and the phosphorous light is more than bright enough to destroy your night vision.)
Whoops! CRITTER KILL: phosphorous road flare? I think?
(I wish the video store had the Blu-Ray version of this film: the blacks are pretty crushed in the dark scenes on this DVD version, it's a bit tough to make out details.)
*phosphor-torched critter sets drying clothes ablaze in the basement laundry room*
Implausible. Remember how regulations required clothing to meet minimum standards of flame retardance, and suddenly people stopped dying at parties from their dresses catching alight? That's a real thing!
Critter destruction / gluttony montage! Couldn't have #3ritters without one of those scenes, the fans would have revolted.
The critters have unerring aim when aiming those soporific spines at unlikable or neutral characters but when targeting sympathetic protagonists they are suddenly no more accurate than Imperial stormtroopers
Didn't that "person/people on top of the elevator are worried about being crushed at the top of the shaft but the cross-brace stops its ascent and prevents the injury" gag crop up in Die Hard (1988) too?
A lot of "funny" scenes in this one are really pretty unnecessary. They could probably have tightened this up to an easy 75 minutes, or used the extra time to give the critters some actual goal to accomplish rather than just running amok for the heck of it.
There are still something like 18 minutes of runtime left in this movie. Let's all pray for a #3ritters katamari. This could still get good.
Is that critter morph-ball power-up-then-charge gag a _Sonic the Hedgehog_ reference..?
Every time a movie puts a character in peril by showing them hanging from a fire escape or flag pole or whatever, and the bolts gradually tear out of the wall until the character falls, I feel like people are being misinformed about how strong those connections actually are. Those bolts _hang on_.
I don't want to cast aspersions or make anyone feel bad, but I feel like the music in this film has been particularly weak. These victory/relief synth riffs are wholly devoid of soul.
AND THAT'S A WRECK
Bad people get eaten, merely-OK people get injured, protagonists get... relocation reimbursements posthumously from their slimy landlord? Critters get murdered horribly in a bunch of ways. Nobody and nothing fucks off into the sea but Charlie fucks off into space. (Or not?) We are denied a crite katamri. Unforgivable.
Thank you for organizing and hosting, @Taweret !
Oh whoops, post-credits (or inter-credits) stinger: there are still two critter eggs left and Charlie is forbidden from doing a genocide, so another critters film must be created. Too bad we will never, ever watch it.
Well, good night!
@gnomon movie physics is just different
Ben Zanin
David Zaslavsky
So many dynamos
mhoye
Stewart Russell