Jurassic Predator

Bayou babe is attacked by a prehistoric alligator and kidnapped by possibly inbred yokels. The script is a slight notch above the usual swamp monster thriller, and there is at least one impressive kill scene. The CGI sticks out like a sore thumb, of course, but I have seen worse.

Saw it with the screen title, "Alligator X."

Alligator X (2010)

** (out of 4)

Creature feature has a couple rednecks in a deep swamp creating a large gator that has been extinct for as far back as anyone can remember. Somehow this creature is now stalking the swamp eating anyone that gets in its path but thankfully there's some nice people willing to try and destroy it. ALLIGATOR X, which is also known as XTINCTION: PREDATOR X, is a pretty average movie from start to finish and I guess I would say that it's fairly well made but if you're advertising a creature feature it might be a good idea to actually spend some time with that creature. The biggest issue I had with this movie is that there simply wasn't enough time with the creature. The attacks rarely happened and when they did they were often filmed in a way where we don't see too much action. Again, I'm really not sure why they selected to try and tell more "story" than actually deliver on the goods that fans coming to these type of movies will expect. While on a technical level this film is much better than your typical film you'd see on SyFy, on the level of entertainment I'd say this isn't nearly as good simply because there's not enough action going on. The majority of the running time has our leading lady searching for her father and then constantly running around the swamp trying to get away from the two rednecks and her ex-husband who just happens to be the scientist trying to take this creature and make more of them. This silly melodrama about her father's property and the various other issues that come up really add nothing to the movie. The performances range from average to above average but none of them are going to knock you off your seats. In regards to violence and gore, the levels are pretty low as there simply aren't enough attacks to get excited about and when they do happen we don't get to see much. ALLIGATOR X is a real wasted opportunity and there's really no point in watching it unless you've got to see every film of its type.

Having read Science Fiction continuously since I was a child, I am drawn, like a moth to a flame, to anything that remotely resembles Science Fiction. Unfortunately, most Sci-Fi ain't it. And I love monsters. I don't mean zombies, or vampires, or werewolves, or mummies. I mean creepy alien life forms, mutations, and undiscovered animals. I've loved reading about dinosaurs since I was a child. Hence my attempt to watch this movie.

Most TV writers (or whoever is responsible for these screenplays) don't seem to understand that the average Science Fiction reader tends to be a bit more intelligent than average. And so when character Dr. Charles LeBlanc shows up early in the film to state that he no longer teaches because there is little "progressive" thought in academia because academia is all about "conservative" mediocrity, well… I'm outta there.

I don't consider myself either "conservative" or "progressive" but if that's the sort of dialogue the writers want me to believe, I don't appreciate the lame joke. Or is this supposed to be some sort of alternate universe? It reminds me of the movie "Smart People" where the main character may be the only "conservative" English/humanities/social sciences professor in existence. The idea that academia is full of professors who glorify "conservative" mediocrity, or even "conservative" ideas, is just too stupid to swallow.

When movie dialogue is that stupid, I go read a book so that drool does not drip down my chin.

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

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.