Croc

Another in Sci-Fi (SyFy) channel's never ending quest to rip off famous monster movies with silly copies, and rip human victims to pieces to accomplish this.

Mutant crocs develop a taste for human cuisine, and run amok in some Asian coastal town. Victims rarely have names, but plenty of spurting red paint when a croc makes a Big Mac out of them. Few characters get even one click above nameless slaughter-meat: an animal welfare agent (who also handles animal social security and animal medicare), a croc hunter (a Capt. Quint clone from Jaws), a carnival barker guy who does a sea-life Shamu type show, carnival barker's moronic cousin, and a stereotypical sunglasses and black suit bad guy in a limo (who looks like he was supposed to be in a kung-fu movie, but got on the set for this one by mistake). Said baddie has countless stooges who end up as croc snacks, of course.

The acting is questionable, but I've seen worse. The director gives this routine hungry monster flick some good pacing, although the script writer has offered nothing new. The croc is just some Animal Planet footage, and the dozens of decapitated heads are obviously Halloween masks with red paint splattered on them. I did like the puppy's acting; his barking was very realistic. He and the croc are the standout performers.

You'll know two minutes in who's gonna get devoured, and the fact that this film will win no Oscar awards. It is however, good cinematic fast food, which is all it's trying to be.

A 20-foot croc terrorizes Krabi, Thailand, while an egotistical mogul tries to put a private zoo out of business by blaming the croc attacks on smaller crocs from the zoo. Peter Tuinstra plays the protagonist, who runs the croc farm while Sherry Edwards appears as his romantic interest, an agent from the animal welfare department. Michael Madsen shows up in the second half as a formidable croc hunter.

"Croc" (2007) is a TV movie that only cost $750,000, but it's a surprisingly compelling crococator flick, all things considered. The highlight is the unique setting of west coast, Thailand, and life thereof. Sure, some of the acting by Asian unknowns is questionable, but if you roll with it, you'll get over it.

Tuinstra makes for a likable protagonist while Madsen does well in what is a cheap gig. The cast of women are interesting, but the filmmakers coulda done better as far as feminine appeal goes.

The film runs 1 hour, 40 minutes and was shot in Krabi, Thailand.

GRADE: B-/C+

CROC may be no LAKE PLACID, but it isn't completely terrible. A very large croc is on the loose, and a bunch of folks, including Michael Madsen in a goofy white hunter's hat, are after it. The young cast playing with Madsen is mostly appealing, and the action rarely lets up. The CGI is minimal, and it would appear a lot of the croc shots are of real crocs. The ending is a bit of a problem, as you will see when and if you watch it. It would appear they ran out of film a little too soon. Or maybe they ran out ideas. Shot in picturesque Thailand and directed by Stewart Raffil of MAC AND ME and ICE PIRATES fame. Or is that infamy?

Is Michael Madsen perpetually drunk or he is he simply method-acting? I am not sure. In "Croc," he is a big game hunter come to rid a Thai village of a man-eating crocodile that happens to be a throwback to prehistoric times. Sometimes the croc is footage of real crocodile and sometimes it is CGI and sometimes it is a dummy. It eats a lot of people, that's for sure. This has nothing on LAKE PLACID, but Madsen is funny in his dopey/sleepy way. And the Thai women are all hotties. Stewart Rafill has made better pictures, but a trip to Thailand was probably hard to turn down. Imagine the partying that took place after the cameras were turned off.

Croc (2007)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

In Thailand a couple teenagers are killed by a crocodile and an American owner of a croc farm gets blamed but he knows it wasn't one of his animals. It turns out that it's really a twenty-footer and thankfully there's a hunter (Michael Madsen) that has been tracking it and plans to take it out. This is a rather strange film because it seems like the screenwriter didn't have any idea where he wanted to take the story so they just went in whatever direction they felt like at the time of shooting. The entire plot is set up around this American guy being hated by a couple brothers from Thailand and their constant attempt to get him out of business. We get countless scenes where the brothers send tax men, police, animal welfare and various other people over to get him to go out of business and I kept wondering to myself why all of this was needed. It certainly goes no where and it doesn't help that we never find out why this guy wants to set up shop here and what got him there to begin with. As far as the crocodiles go, we get a mixture of real footage as well as some really bad CGI stuff. The CGI attacks are all very bad simply because they're so obviously fake. There's not a single attack here that comes off looking real and even the blood is bad CGI most of the time. For the life of me I can't understand why producers don't mind the effects looking this cheap and bad but oh well. Another major problem is that none of the characters are at all like able but this is certainly due to the screenplay that seems to build up the dumbest bit of information on them and we get even dumber scenes like the stuff at the bar when the Americans are trying to pick up some girls. The T&A level is at zero and the death scenes are all bad so those looking for any kind of sleaze are going to be disappointed. None of the performances are very memorable and that includes Madsen who is obviously just picking up a paycheck. The only major plus to this film is that it was actually shot in Thailand, which gives us some terrific visuals but that's about it. There aren't any scares either so we're left with a pretty bad flick that should only be viewed by those who must see every killer croc movie out there.