Dinocroc vs. Supergator

Well, first of let me start by stating that this movie was actually a notch above the rubbish that comes from the heads at SyFy. Sure, this movie was cheesy and pretty out there, but still managed better than so many others from the same company.

You get to see the two gargantuan reptiles right away, so that was fairly cool, and at most the CGI was adequate to look at, except for some repeated uses of some scenes. What is up with that? As for the dialogue in the movie, well that was halting. And there was so much over-pronunciation going on with some of the actors and actresses, it became unbearable to watch and much worse listening to in the long run.

The story, well nothing grand or innovating here. Pretty much by the "Hey Let's Make a Giant Monster"-movie book. It is quite honestly put, brainless action in the style of monsters going rampage and unlikely heroes coming together and besting the monsters, of course. And the stereotypical bad guy dies by the hands of his own creation. So, basically straight from the mold of these movies.

And why was David Carradine in a movie of this caliber? That was just beyond me, but hey, I am not one to question that, or am I? Well, anyway, this movie is better than most other SyFy movies, but still it is nothing to get your hopes up for. It is well below average as for other movies. Some giant monster movies make it work, and others fall through. "Dinocroc vs. Supergator" did the latter.

Might be worth your time if you like campy monster movies, or if you are a huge Carradine fan, otherwise, not really worth the hour and half wasted of your lifespan.

Well, you know exactly what you're getting with that title, so it's no surprise that DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR is a real stinker of a film. You know the film has to be bad when even cult director Jim Wynorski is hiding underneath a pseudonym. This one was handled by the SyFy Channel as a clear spin on the surprisingly popular Asylum movies, but it's even worse than those, if that's even possible.

The plot line is the usual stuff with government meddling in nature leading to the creation of not one but two super critters. Yes, they fight - eventually and in the most routine fashion - but until that stage we're mired in a mess of rubbishy actors and excruciating dialogue. David Carradine headlines the cast here but appears only in a minor role; for the most part it's blonde bimbo time, with nubile women running around in their bikinis and getting munched on bloodlessly. There's a wooden and ridiculously masculine hero called simply The Cajun, plenty of cheesy CGI effects, and an almost entire lack of blood and gore on display. Even B-movie fans will struggle with this one.

There can't be anyone left in the civilised world, or even Belgium, who doesn't know what to expect from a SyFy original FooCritter vs BarBeast quota filler by now.

In case you want to bake your own, here's the recipe:

A title vomited out by the Random Creature Name Generator, run twice.

One has-been Name who neglected their 401K back when they could actually pick and choose their projects.

Half a dozen desperate wannabes, harvested from the weeping rejects of other people's auditions.

4000lbs of assorted bikinis, short-shorts and military surplus, plus sweater meat and six packs to fill them. Quality unimportant, just back the truck up, tip them all out, and we'll film whatever works.

2 buckets of plot and lines swept from the editing room of actual features.

A double-scoop of "nature's revenge" technobabble, with a generous sprinkling of pseudo-science so utterly and boldly bogus that it must surely qualify as deliberate nerd baiting.

60 seconds of ropey CGI, re-shown from every possible angle.

Shake vigorously and squeeze down a warm cable for 90 minutes.

Come on, you know exactly what you're getting. A dash of cleavage, a splash of CGI gore, plastic props that ejaculate the same muzzle flash every frame for 20 seconds - no need to reload if you're not even using real fake guns - a corpse-a-minute, and a climax that could charitably be described as genre compliant.

To be fair, this is a particularly moist and well baked example of the recipe. The walking snacks do a generally decent job of flashing their funbags and emoting their precious lines before queuing up to become lizard chow, the girl-next-door lead poppet is all eyes and pout, the male leads aren't obvious douches, and a few scenes feature something shockingly close to actual acting.

The CGI in particular is surprisingly well rendered, efficiently used (and re-used), and occasionally very decently integrated into the live shots, sometimes even matching variable light and shade - surely a SyFy first. The live action is also competently shot, edited and scored: this is clearly someone's day job.

All of which must be kept in perspective. Strictly relative to other SyFy features, Dinocroc vs. Supergator is about an 8/10, which applying the SyFy Fudge Factor puts it at a solid 4 on the real scale. Not bad at all, especially if you bring a few beers and low expectations.

Having watched both "Dinocroc" and "Supergator" prior to this particular picture, I would just like to mention that there isn't much continuity between this film and either of its two predecessors. For starters, the original Dinocroc and Supergator were created in laboratories fusing dinosaur DNA with that of the respective creature. However, this movie takes a different approach and instead has scientists inserting a special growth hormone into both an alligator and a crocodile--who then subsequently escape and become man-eating monsters. In essence then, it's the same basic plot but with a slightly different formula used to get things started. Likewise, as far as the overall quality of this movie is concerned, I will just say that this movie shares many of the same faults as the other two as well. The acting is substandard, the special effects weren't very good and the suspense was non-existent. In short, this movie has very little novelty to offer viewers other than the fact that instead of one monster there are two. Other than that there is nothing really new. That said, unless a person really enjoys films of this type I would advise viewers to give this one a pass. Below average.

Like most other people, I can certainly appreciate a fun, campy B-flick but sometimes things are just too much to handle. This movie makes no attempt at ever trying to be creative or original and it isn't even really trying to be good. It's like the film-makers already gave up on things, before they even started shooting.

This means that the movie allows itself to be as silly as possible and it doesn't worry about any logic or consistency. It's mostly a very random movie, that seems to be thrown together from an one hour brainstorm session, Roger Corman had with his staff.

The lack of true creativity and originality with its story was truly the thing that bothered me the most. It does not only borrow heavily from other movies, it even borrows from itself. The movie is repeating itself numerous times throughout the movie and at times even recycles its own footage. 20 minutes in, the movie is already running out of steam and ideas.

The most random things about this movie are its killings. There is not really any logic to it as to why Dinocroc and Supergator are killing certain people. You would think they are doing it for food but sometimes they are simply crushing people and seem to be wanting to kill as many random people as possible. And I mean some very random people. All these people literally pop up out of nowhere and you know they are only in this movie to get killed. This is not something unusual for a movie to do but this movie does this a bit too often. Not just once or twice but it happens all the time, throughout the entire movie.

But it's not like there is much more logic to the story itself. Once you start thinking about it, all of the characters are making some incredibly stupid choices, that are far from likely to ever happen, in the case a real Dinocroc and Supergator would be on the loose one day.

Still the thing that will caught the most attention is how incredibly bad the movie is looking. The special effects are really shocking and it's the kind of stuff basically everybody could do now days, on any random computer. Dinocroc and Supergator look like they have wandered right out of an old Playstation game and they just never look right whenever they have to interact with the environment or when they are attacking or eating random people. You won't believe how fake and horrible it's all looking!

All of the actors seemed also very well aware of what mess they got themselves into. But really, it's not like they were expecting much good from this movie before they singed up for it. A glance at the title would had been enough for them to know that this wasn't going to be an award worthy movie. They all decide to go over-the-top and still have some fun with it, which was probably the best thing to do but it does take you out of the movie even more. Still David Carradine is trying to make something out of his role and he probably is the most professional thing about this entire movie.

Sometimes bad its just bad. Especially when it's not even really trying.

3/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/