Dinocroc

There are some things I can never understand. Such as this movie. What if I were to create a really really cheap and crappy looking Dino and crocodile polygon model in Maya and then proceed to cut and paste that into an amateur video clip having people scream and getting eaten by the same thing? How can anyone even believe that an utterly fake CGI dinocroc that looks completely out of place, would influence the events in this movie? I know that its B-grade, low budget and all but the producers could do better than making a piece of crap that no one will ever seen see or sit through. It just does'nt make sense. Are people really so stupid that they would sit through this? Apparently so. For laughs? No, this thing isn't even worth laughing at.

If you know what to expect, then Dinocroc, may not be such a terrible watch. The best word to describe it would be amusing, because it is just as unintentionally fun as it is intentionally.

The premise is your typical science experiment gone wrong. One night, a genetically engineered baby croc (prehistoric croc actually) escapes from a lab, and after a midnight snack of human flesh, it grows to full size in a matter of hours (now that's funny). A mixed matched handful of people go out to stop it, before it kills any more.

In addition to fairly weak acting, and visual effects that wouldn't fool a four year old, Dinocroc also has several blatant Jaws rip-offs. At the same time however, it makes a few wiser decisions. It chooses to avoid extreme gore, and clear sighting of the creature until the director feels it's time to move into action mode.

These movies are usually made for no more than a couple of million dollars, but Roger Corman has made so many that together they probably cost as much as Titanic. I don't know much about him, other than he's a veteran of the B-movie industry. I've chosen not to ask why he does this sort of thing. Dinocroc is not bad, there is better but there is also much worse.

If you are a fan of B movies, you have probably seen that Roger Corman's movies have become cheaper and tackier as the years have passed. So when I sat down to watch "Dinocroc", I thought this would look worse than even the last entries of his "Bloodfist" series. But the movie did surprise me to a degree. In this Corman movie, the sets, props, and the cinematography look much better than usual. As for the special effects (mostly CGI work), for a low budget movie they are impressive. While it's true that the dinocroc looks real bad when it's seen in full light, when seen underwater or in darkness it is an acceptable special effect. It's too bad, then, that the movie is mostly sunk by a poor script. We have dumb hunters, evil scientists who hardly make an appearance, and not enough scenes of the monster munching on people. Oh, and the way the monster is dispatched at the end of the movie is VERY unsatisfying. Still, with the knowledge that Corman has made MUCH worse movies, I know this movie could have been a lot worse than it is right now.

Roger Corman makes entertaining movies, and he's made several giant monster movies for the sci-fi channel. Out of them all, this follows his classic style the most, including not so good special effects.

The classic style that didn't work includes the monster not showing itself, lots of people shots that are just fillers, and slow story development.

The special effects croc is a joke. It has no believability to its character.

This is a cheesy movie what people expect from a borderline B movie. Since this was first in line of many of this type of movies to come, it may have had budget problems. In any case, the movie itself was successful, and spawned many different super beast movies. The later productions has much better quality.

I couldn't warm up to this movie, and this is not one of the best of super monster series that came from Roger Corman's production.

Just for the record, Dinocroc is not the worst movie I've ever see, or even one of them, not even close. But I don't really recommend it either. Dinocroc is certainly not without redeeming values. The scenery is decent, though could have done with more of an atmosphere, while the soundtrack is haunting and not too obvious and Joanna Pagula as well as having an alluring presence does what she can with a rather stereotypical character. On the other hand, I was very mixed on the story, it didn't ever bore me, it did start off well and it deserve credit for not being too derivative of Jurassic Park, on the other hand it has a very standard concept which was partly why I was never surprised at what went on in the film, the attack scenes are not suspenseful and come across as goofy instead and the the climax is abrupt and just not convincing on any level. Apart from the scenery, Dinocroc was lacking for me visually also, the editing is not as choppy as similar movies I've seen but there are moments where it is rather obviously done which detracts from any kind of nail-biting terror or suspense. I've seen worse effects, but these ones are still artificially rendered with the monster crude and not scary or the like at all. The script is horribly cheesy also, while the characters are stereotypical and made to do irritating things(like the man using his dog as bait but is still killed) and the acting is bad, especially from a bland Matthew Borlenghi and an over-the-top Costas Mandylor. All in all, cheap and irritating nonsense but not the worst way you can waste your time on. 3/10 Bethany Cox