Croc

A very large crocodile is taking out locals and tourists in a small town in Thailand.  And when I say large, I am talking twenty feet worth of large.  Michael Madsen (a.k.a. Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs) has come to help capture and kill the crocodile.  In this movie, Michael Madsen is Croc Hawkins, the croc hunter.

 

Jack McQuade runs an amusement park that showcases crocodiles and elephant soccer.  A contractor wants Jack's property and is trying everything to take the land from him.  He has tried all sorts of tactics to get the land, even buying a seat on the city council.  When reports start coming in about the crocodile murders, he frames Jack to try and get the land.

 

But the crocodile that is is eating the people is not from Jack's park.  It is a much larger one that Croc Hawkins has been tracking for some time.  It takes a long time to set up and lots of terrible shots of a normal sized crocodile before the crocodile is finally dealt with.

 

There are several silly moments in the movie worth mentioning.  A chase scene in the movie where a guy is trying to kill Jack's sister by running her down.  To prevent from being killed, Jack's sister and her companion fall to the ground and the SUV drives right over them.  Not to say that being hit by this SUV could not have accomplished the intended mission, but being able to clear the bodies would probably not be that effective.  Another silly moment involves the scene after the contractor is killed by the large croc in his own swimming pool.  It is not the scene of the body parts floating in the pool, but rather the scene with the contractors' wife.  Who not only doesn't seem to care that her husband has been killed, but almost smirks that he was killed.

 

Gore at a minimum, horrible acting, and some of the worst overlay video with a crocodile paired with some scuba divers.  This movie is not even good for a laugh.

 

I give this movie 0 out of 5 scooters.

Dinocroc

Another mad experiment goes wrong when a research lab tries to use DNA from an ancient crocodile to splice into new specimens.  I don't even remember why they wanted to do this research.  I only know that the town of Grant's Lake is going to have some problems.

 

One of the funnier moments of the beginning is when one of the research team is trying to control the specimens after they begin to fight amongst each other.  She does this by banging on the glass and yelling, "Stop it!"  When that fails, she enters the chamber so that she can get attacked by one of the small dinocrocs.  What ... could .. she ... have ... been ... thinking?  "My taser will protect me!"  Sure.

 

The movie does not get any better after that scene.

 

The "croc doc" comes in to help get the dinocroc.  And what do you know, he's Australian.  He's an expert for tracking crocodiles.  If you want to track this croc, all you have to do is wait for the dramatic choir to start singing.  It's like the dinocroc theme or something.

 

The sheriff and deputies attempt to hunt down the croc, but they fail.  Five of the deputies are killed, which is apparently the entire force.  A plan is eventually put together to attempt to gas the croc with carbon monoxide.  Cue the montage.  Nothing says we don't have a lot of time, but want to show that we can get a lot of work done in that short time like a montage.

 

Two large gates are constructed and they lure the dinocroc into a sewer pipe, gas the croc.  They think that it's dead, but there is about 20 minutes left in the movie, so of course it's not dead.  Only after being hit with a nearby freight train, does the dinocroc become immobile and can have a large metal pipe shoved into its eye.

 

I know it's predictable.  I know that the female lead is eventually going to have a romantic encounter with the male lead.  And, I know that the person running the research facility will eventually get killed by the experiment that was created at their lab.  So why watch it?  I'm asking myself the same question.  No good kill scenes.  The digital dinocroc is more dinosaur than crocodile.  But they did have a real three legged dog named "Lucky", so I guess that was cool.

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 three legged dogs.

Supercroc

Have you ever watch a movie so bad that you forgot it and watch it again?  I am guilty of that happening for this movie.  Supercroc is a super crock.

 

In the Los Padres National Forest, approximately 65 miles north of Los Angeles, a small team of soldiers is performing a maneuver.  Possibly a training exercise.  It doesn't seem to be too terribly important, because two of the team are not focused and keep talking of their wedding plans.  Meanwhile, back at command, they are monitoring the team's movements.  The command center is a small room that can barely hold six people and a couple of wide screens.

 

Of the first unit, only one soldier survives the brutal onslaught of an 80 foot digital crocodile.  The surviving female soldier that happens to be from Florida and is conveniently an expert on crocodiles.  A second unit is deployed to perform a rescue mission.  All of this seems rather normal military procedure.

 

Here is where the movie breaks down for me.  There is some research doctor lady in the command center.  She send a unit of soldiers out in a white van to collect a few of the eggs that the other two patrol units had discovered.  How she is allowed to manipulate the soldiers is amazing.  And the fact that they obey the orders from her is something else.

 

The Supercroc is mad and now is on the hunt for her lost eggs.  Supercroc has survived an air strike, being gassed, and being shot.  She is going to get to those eggs.  The eggs are moved to the AFB in Los Angeles.  The research doctor lady steals one of the eggs and hides it in a dumpster, then she is crushed by Supercroc.  The Supercroc finally gets taken out with a bomb to the belly.  And I was thankful that it finally got killed.  But now they have to worry about the dumpster egg.

 

I don't know if the people who wrote the film had much faith in the military or if they just didn't have the budget.  The people in charge panic a lot.  One solution was to nuke the croc.  I am glad it didn't come to that.  Seeing the digital crocodile attack the digital helicopter was fun, but the over-acting by several of the cast is just too much to take.

 

I give this movie 0 out of 5 crocodile eggs.

Crocodile II: Death Roll

I thought I smelled a sequel.  Yep.  The big crocodile is back for more.  Only this time, it's not Egyptian.  It's Aztec.

 

A group of criminals rob a bank and are going to Mexico to escape the law.  They board Air Acapulco and check all of their bags holding the loot.  It's a rainy flight and the storm is so bad that the pilot is told that he needs to turn around.  That's when the expletives and bullets fly.  The plane is hijacked.  The copilot is shot and the bullet damages the instruments, forcing the plane to go down.  The plane rips in half and there are not many survivors.

 

The boyfriend of one of the flight attendants sees on the Acapulco news that the plane has gone down and hires a tracker to help find the plane, since he thinks that no government officials will do any thing.  This tracker guy has it all, a helicopter, several small boats, electronic gear to track the "black box" of the airplane.  You name it.

 

The croc starts taking the survivors down one by one.  The boyfriend and tracker meet up with the survivors and the whole crew of them make it to some deserted boat launch or something.  Of course, that doesn't last and they have to make a break for it to try and get back to the helicopter.

 

Like the first Crocodile movie, the croc waits until the end to do something worthwhile.  This time it takes down the helicopter.

 

It's as bad as the first one, but at least the croc is killed so we know there won't be Crocodile III: Expect Less.  Or should we?

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 Aztec crocodiles.

Crocodile

How could a movie about college kids going to Spring Break on a house boat be bad?  Right?  Well, Crocodile makes it bad.

 

These college kids get on a houseboat and head off to a secluded part of the area and set up camp.  In the distance, there are the remains of a hotel that was burned down.  Legend has it that the owners of the hotel had a crocodile that was direct descendants from Egyptian pharaohs.  The legend is told around the campfire and is supposed to scare one of the girls.

 

Two fisherman, on a wildlife preserve, decide to destroy a nest of eggs that they come across.  Always a good idea to do that on a preserve.  The first fisherman becomes a mist of blood when the croc attacks.  The second on heads back to the car, where he is attacked and killed.  And unlike any other act of defiance that I have ever seen before by a computer generated creature, it then pushes the car into the water to cover the crime.  Pretty smart.

 

The kids get picked off one by one.  There are some pretty weak death scenes.  Breaking through the hull of the houseboat, the croc destroys the vessel and the kids have to swim to shore.

 

The sheriff begins to investigate the missing fisherman and notices the destroyed nest.  He brings one of the egg shells to a local gator farm to try and see if they can make anything out of the shell.  It's really over the top when one of the workers shows up at the office, bleeding because the gators "don't like getting their teeth brushed".  Was that really necessary?

 

It's not until the very end of the movie when the croc finally does something cool.  A full water breach, spinning the entire time, over the sheriff's boat.  The croc does survive.  Do I smell a sequel?  You betcha!

 

I give this movie 1/2 out of 5 Egyptian crocodiles.