Jurassic Predator

I happened to see Xtinction(aka Alligator X) on the SyFy channel. This movie is not as bad as some of the other output that airs on that channel, but in all honesty, is that any consolation? Xtinction still manages to start out a mess and finish on exactly the same level.

For starters, the acting is very poor. Elena Lyons is actually decent, and the only real redeeming quality of the movie. The rest of the cast look completely disengaged, but it doesn't help that all the characters in Xtinction are very uninteresting and seem to have no life or purpose to them at all.

The cinematography is more than okay too, however the effects cheapen it. The effects are not the worst I've seen, but they are crude and horrifically bad in too many places, while the look of the film in terms of colour palette and lighting is drab. I accept there was a need of a hostile atmosphere, but the drab look made it rather depressing in alternative to foreboding and hostile.

The script is clichéd and cheesy, and the direction is derivative. What really kills Xtinction are the story and pace. Pace-wise, Xtinction is very dull, and the story and characters don't do much to engage us either. The story is very unfocused, with some of the film focusing on the dinosaur which was somewhat intriguing but lacking in tension, it was underdeveloped and the shock value was rather cheap. And the kidnapping focus that dominates the middle is just as derivative as the direction, with no genuine build ups to compensate. The ending is also a major let down in how predictable it is.

All in all, I've seen worse, but this film is a mess really. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Returning to her hometown to deal with her father's disappearance, a woman and her friends find he's part of a rampage of terror conducted by a monstrous prehistoric crocodile and try to find a way to end it's blood-soaked rampage.

This wasn't all that great of a creature but did have a few good points drowned in it's flaws. There's no use complaining about the lack of quality CGI here since that's to be expected with this, but the fact that it never really featured the title creature at all in this who tends to be so rarely shown in the film that there's almost a sense of it not being a real creature feature at all. By choosing to focus instead on the family drama and the different background characters first, the crocodile doesn't seem to be a big important factor in the plot and rarely seems to be a concern for them once it does show up, dramatically reducing it's effectiveness even before the lame effects used for it are brought into play. There's some good stuff in the rather frenetic finale that finally lets the creature loose and get a decent rampage on the populace resulting in some fine deaths and a bit of action, the ultimate manner of killing the beast is pretty creative and overall the second half has a nice vibe to it, but overall it's quite lacking.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language

"Xtinction: Predator X", "Jurassic Predator", "Alligator X", ... This flick has 3 juicy-sounding titles (and possibly even more) but none of them can conceal the fact it's a typically lousy and low-budgeted piece of trash from the Syfy stable! That's okay, though, because you at least know what to expect: a preposterous & incoherent nonsense-story, terribly CGI-effects, and a tremendous body count!

Set in the Southern Louisianan swamps, in the horribly aftermath-years of hurricane Katrina, the brilliant but totally deranged scientist Dr. LeBlanc found some bones of a deadly marine dinosaur species - more specifically the Pliosaurus - and promptly managed to clone and resurrect it! How? Who knows. Why? Who cares! The thing does need to be fed, and the local Sheriff quickly finds himself investigating 5-6 missing person cases. Luckily, for him, his former crush (and ex-wife of Dr. LeBlanc) also returned home, because her father is one of the missing people.

The IMDb rating of 3.0/10 (at the time I'm submitting this review, at least) is exactly right. Low enough to warn people with good taste not to bother, and high enough to indicate to B-movie trash fanatics there's some fun to have with it.

It may have helped if the so-called residents of Louisiana had even just a bit of a southern accent. The acting is barely passable. I've seen some cheaply made sci-fi movies that at least had interesting characters. This one is just a bomb from the beginning.

Right, well with the notion that "Xtinction: Predator X" (aka "Alligator X") is in the creature feature genre, then chances are that you are in for something that you have already seen countless times before and that you are in for a movie with hilarious special effects.

And true enough, "Alligator X" is just that. It offers nothing new to the genre that hasn't already been seen in other movies.

The story presented here is a very bland and generic storyline, even in comparison to other story lines in this genre. A genetically modified creature is on the rampage in the wilderness and it is a up to a small group of people to stop it, of course.

"Alligator X" has some questionable special effects, like so many others in the genre. But that is actually one of the reason why we keep watching this genre, isn't it? To see how laughable and pathetic the creature turns out to be. And the CGI in "Alligator X" wasn't impressive, let's just say that. I was especially impressed with how a big creature was able to not cause ripples on the water as it moved about.

As for the acting, well it was as to be expected for a movie in this genre. So don't hold your breath for a thespian experience out of the ordinary. It was, however, sort of fun to watch Lochlyn Munro run around here and pretend to be an officer of the law fighting a monstrous alligator.

The characters in the movie were fairly generic, with the heroic protagonists and the stereotypical villain and goons. There wasn't much of characteristics or details added to these cardboard cut-outs, so you don't really care much about the people in the movie.

There are far better movies available in the genre, and once you have seen "Alligator X" then you are very unlikely to return to it for a second time around.