Dinocroc

Pretty stupid, but relatively harmless nonsense.

Try to imagine a hybrid child of Jaws and Lake Placid; this flick shamelessly rips them both off at will. A giant crocodile with Stegasaurus stuff on its back roams in as well as out of the water, munching on everybody it can find. It growls a lot, too. At least the frequent deaths are often suggested rather than gruesomely exploited visually. You've got a skeptic sheriff, of course. His goofy daughter is a game warden who's against euthanizing puppy overpopulation. There's a guy who wants revenge against the monster running around and screaming a lot. There's even a big game hunter complete with Indy Jones garb. The ever-present annoying character who you love to hate, and that you know will get devoured sooner or later, is a loud-mouth freedom-of-the-press psycho journalist who is as irritating as those cable "news channel" talk show hosts.

The CGI is so fake it's funny, and the dialog is also absurd. People always yelling at a beast challenging it to fight is even more laughable. The story storms forward with its primeval creature making one kill after another, there's rarely a dull moment. The way they finally get rid of the thing is both innovative and amusing.

Goofy stuff, and OK if you watch it for the sole purpose of laughing your insides out.

An unscrupulous genetic engineering firm, conducting cloning experiments with crocodiles as a means to resolve the world's impending food shortage accidentally releases a specimen into the woods surrounding a popular lake with predictable consequences. Executive produced by Roger Corman, you might have hoped for better than this limp wristed CGI-dependent cheapie that features some capable and familiar faces. The leads are so busy getting into each other's pants, that poor Michael (Jake Thomas) is left to search for his missing dog alone, ending up on the Dinocroc platter. A grieving brother (Borlenghi) then sets about taking revenge with the assistance of Aussie game-hunter doubling as an ichthyologist (Mandylor) and Corman veteran Charles Napier as the local sheriff.

Joanna Pacula's role as the firm's chief could have been a stroke of deft casting, but she receives so little air time, her role is reduced to a caricature of the stereotypical villain. But even more disappointing is the reliance on CGI animation and post-production effects to create the action sequences with the "Dinocroc". Much of the camp quality of the Corman-inspired monster movie was in the flimsy, plastic construction of the title beast. Some of the sequences on the lake (take the water skiing moment) would have been far more entertaining were it not for the clumsy computer animation.

Co-writer John Huckert does a misguided Peter Benchley inspired cameo as a journalist – now punters will know his face as well as his name, which could jeopardise future writing gigs once you witness the quality (or lack thereof) of this effort. Choral orchestral soundtrack layered over the attacking sequences give the beast an almost unholy reverence, but the CGI effects are out of sync and the result is anything but precision or grace. If there's any redemption at all, you might draw visual relief in the fresh-faced and feisty Jane Longenecker who in spite of her lower order billing, is the constant presence throughout (and much better looking than either Mandylor or the "dinocroc").

...In that this movie never seems to deliver exactly what it wants. I, personally, love cheap straight-to-video monster movies, but this one just doesn't satisfy enough. I was expecting Tobe Hooper's CROCODILE, but was left with the sequel. Overall, worth renting if you enjoy the genre.

1.5 (out of 5) Rated: "R" for some creature violence/gore, and language.

Summary: DinoCroc is what you get when you mix SNAKEHEAD TERROR and CROCODILE 2: DEATH SWAMP. Don't expect an oscar.

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.

After a 100-million-year-old dinosaur, related to our present-day crocodile, is discovered a corporation by the name of "Gereco" decides to conduct genetic research using its DNA to stimulate growth. As it so happens the experiment is a complete success until one of their specimens escapes and begins consuming everything in its vicinity. However, rather than alerting the authorities the Gereco company decides to keep everything top secret in the hope that they can somehow contain the damage themselves. Now, rather than reveal any more of the story and risk spoiling the film for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this movie was pretty much what I expected from a Roger Corman film in that it had a definite B-movie quality to it. The acting wasn't that good, and the CGI could have used some improvement as well. But Jane Longenecker (as "Diane Harper") was certainly cute and even though it was mostly predictable there were a few surprises here and there which managed to keep my interest for the most part. I especially liked the suspense toward the end. In any case, while I don't consider this to be a good movie by any means I suppose it wasn't terribly bad either and so I rate it as just slightly below average.