Supercroc

Well well...

my first 'review' on IMDb. Until now I've mostly read others opinions and reviews, usually ignoring well-meant and sincere advises to NOT watch certain movies. Let me just say: I hope I can spare some people 90 minutes of utter misery by saying DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE! I'm quite a fan of this type of movies, where usually some kind of animal or creature, created by some chemical waste or awakened from a centuries long slumber, is threatening a crew or city and killing/destroying everything in it's wake. I'm used to such movies not rating too high on IMDb as well. But this one definitely beats everything when it comes to being complete crap.

The storyline... I'm not really sure there was one. The special effects... imagine a 100foot crocodile making it's way into the water, without even the slightest ripple in the water surface; amazing? Not as amazing as how it stampedes around noisy like a herd of mammoths in one scene, yet manages to sneak up on our brave heroes without a sound in the next.

One other annoying thing was the sound; I don't know if my sound system was mucking up on me, but 3/4 of the dialogs were impossible to hear if you don't want to actively raise and lower your volume continuously. Especially when a 'background' music or tune is playing (which is most of the time), it becomes impossible to hear what is being said. Learn to read lips or make sure you have the subtitles on.

Ah to cut it short, this really is a miserable attempt at a movie. Feel absolutely free to watch it, but don't say you weren't warned.

The acting is competent, with Kim Little (sort of resembles a Faith Ford and Elisabeth Shue hybrid which is kind of cool), playing her cards close to her chest as Government palaeontologist called in to advise on a giant crocodile that's been unearthed by an earthquake, threatening coastal towns en route to LA. Soldiers in the field (Hall & Blashaw) are being pursued by the indestructible behemoth with General (Novak), Little's character and other assorted advisors frantically co-ordinating efforts to control the beast's path of destruction from HQ.

It's all digital camcorder, CGI, synthesiser-sound, cheap home movie stuff, and while the performances are probably better than average for this type of production, the overall result is lacklustre. A raft of audio-visual tricks that don't paper over the budget holes, no realistic interaction between actors and the title antagonist, MTV-style light, sound and editing techniques, masses of stock footage but most disappointing of all, precious little horror or suspense.

It's the kind of movie that looks conceived and executed by visual artists instead of storytellers, all smoke & mirrors sans substance.

The cover of the Australian DVD sports the tag line "Original Uncut Version" and it is rated "M" (presumably for mature audiences) for "coarse language". I haven't watched any other version, just this Australian DVD, so I cannot say what, if anything, has been cut from other versions. Yet, this so-called "uncut" version itself is pretty lame anyway... The sole reason I recommend this Australian DVD is the great art on the cover! While the US DVD, whose covers scans I have seen on the net, features a crocodile eye over a cityscape, the Australian DVD features a giant crocodile jumping out of the sea to swallow a helicopter. There is nothing else to recommend about this movie, just DVD cover art, and only the Australian DVD at that...

The sound is dreadful. The background music drowns out much of the dialog. Gunfire sounds added to the soundtrack leaves the audience wondering if one of the very dumb characters might have said something that could be quoted later. The female star shouts her lines and she manages to irritate the audience when she cries or argues or even when she says nothing. It is the director's fault. The dailies would show that the cast needed to be changed. Keep the fake croc or fake helicopter or fake gunfire but lose the cast. The guy lead is OK but his character is wimpy. He should have been the girl. I generously give this two stars because I think something worse is waiting for me to watch that I could give a one star rating. The CGI monster is adequate. These people will make a movie again if we don't stop them in Oxnard or Point Magu, they could reach Los Angeles and lay eggs.

I thought it was just me, but no, apparently the sound really is that bad. But then I am one of those people who leave the Closed Captions turned on by default on my television. They would have been a blessing for this movie. During the.first half of the movie I couldn't help but think that if I had been watching this in black and white I would have assumed it was a B-movie from the 1950s. But I like those sort of films (where's Ray Harryausen when you need him?)....unfortunately the story gets less and less convincing as it goes on and even introduces a conspiracy sub-plot with a very predictable final scene. Sorry, it's no threat to 1959's "The Giant Gila Monster".