L'attaque du crocodile géant

Another in Sci-Fi (SyFy) channel's never ending quest to rip off famous monster movies with silly copies, and rip human victims to pieces to accomplish this.

Mutant crocs develop a taste for human cuisine, and run amok in some Asian coastal town. Victims rarely have names, but plenty of spurting red paint when a croc makes a Big Mac out of them. Few characters get even one click above nameless slaughter-meat: an animal welfare agent (who also handles animal social security and animal medicare), a croc hunter (a Capt. Quint clone from Jaws), a carnival barker guy who does a sea-life Shamu type show, carnival barker's moronic cousin, and a stereotypical sunglasses and black suit bad guy in a limo (who looks like he was supposed to be in a kung-fu movie, but got on the set for this one by mistake). Said baddie has countless stooges who end up as croc snacks, of course.

The acting is questionable, but I've seen worse. The director gives this routine hungry monster flick some good pacing, although the script writer has offered nothing new. The croc is just some Animal Planet footage, and the dozens of decapitated heads are obviously Halloween masks with red paint splattered on them. I did like the puppy's acting; his barking was very realistic. He and the croc are the standout performers.

You'll know two minutes in who's gonna get devoured, and the fact that this film will win no Oscar awards. It is however, good cinematic fast food, which is all it's trying to be.

A 20-foot croc terrorizes Krabi, Thailand, while an egotistical mogul tries to put a private zoo out of business by blaming the croc attacks on smaller crocs from the zoo. Peter Tuinstra plays the protagonist, who runs the croc farm while Sherry Edwards appears as his romantic interest, an agent from the animal welfare department. Michael Madsen shows up in the second half as a formidable croc hunter.

"Croc" (2007) is a TV movie that only cost $750,000, but it's a surprisingly compelling crococator flick, all things considered. The highlight is the unique setting of west coast, Thailand, and life thereof. Sure, some of the acting by Asian unknowns is questionable, but if you roll with it, you'll get over it.

Tuinstra makes for a likable protagonist while Madsen does well in what is a cheap gig. The cast of women are interesting, but the filmmakers coulda done better as far as feminine appeal goes.

The film runs 1 hour, 40 minutes and was shot in Krabi, Thailand.

GRADE: B-/C+

Croc (2007)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

In Thailand a couple teenagers are killed by a crocodile and an American owner of a croc farm gets blamed but he knows it wasn't one of his animals. It turns out that it's really a twenty-footer and thankfully there's a hunter (Michael Madsen) that has been tracking it and plans to take it out. This is a rather strange film because it seems like the screenwriter didn't have any idea where he wanted to take the story so they just went in whatever direction they felt like at the time of shooting. The entire plot is set up around this American guy being hated by a couple brothers from Thailand and their constant attempt to get him out of business. We get countless scenes where the brothers send tax men, police, animal welfare and various other people over to get him to go out of business and I kept wondering to myself why all of this was needed. It certainly goes no where and it doesn't help that we never find out why this guy wants to set up shop here and what got him there to begin with. As far as the crocodiles go, we get a mixture of real footage as well as some really bad CGI stuff. The CGI attacks are all very bad simply because they're so obviously fake. There's not a single attack here that comes off looking real and even the blood is bad CGI most of the time. For the life of me I can't understand why producers don't mind the effects looking this cheap and bad but oh well. Another major problem is that none of the characters are at all like able but this is certainly due to the screenplay that seems to build up the dumbest bit of information on them and we get even dumber scenes like the stuff at the bar when the Americans are trying to pick up some girls. The T&A level is at zero and the death scenes are all bad so those looking for any kind of sleaze are going to be disappointed. None of the performances are very memorable and that includes Madsen who is obviously just picking up a paycheck. The only major plus to this film is that it was actually shot in Thailand, which gives us some terrific visuals but that's about it. There aren't any scares either so we're left with a pretty bad flick that should only be viewed by those who must see every killer croc movie out there.

A crocodile farm in Thailand is threatened with closure after a few code violations. Behind this surprise inspection lies a real estate developer who wants the land where the farm sits. He will stop at nothing to get the land, even sabotaging the cages to let the crocodiles loose. And when local swimmers are being devoured, people start to notice.

My friend Chelsea and I watched this because she's been on a "bad movie" kick lately, and "Croc" was sure to fit that description, being part of the Man Eaters series (the same series that brought us the worthless "Blood Monkey"). I'm not sure if I was disappointed or not -- "Croc" is infinitely better than "Blood Monkey". Computer effects are used minimally, the acting is decent for the most part and there's an actual plot. And plenty of crocodiles, which was surprising after the absence of monkeys in "Blood Monkey".

I also have to give this film credit for not exploiting Michael Madsen. Madsen appears in the movie and plays a significant role (although he doesn't speak until the second half). Yet, the cover of the movie doesn't mention him at all. I've seen lower budget films exploit the names of mid-grade celebrities so often, I'm really impressed they decided to sell the movie with crocodiles rather than Madsen. Well played, "Croc" -- especially since this would have been an appropriate use for him.

The strength of this film is in the blood and guts. The makers of the film knew that they needed plenty of croc attacks and body parts, and we're treated to it. I also like how they explored a romance, but kept it to the bare minimum, making this more of a man versus beast picture. I learned from Sandra Bullock in "Speed" that relationships that develop during stressful events never work out.

Some things about the movie could be better. Some of the acting is poor (although not as much as you'd expect). And there's a scene with a crocodile in a swimming pool. How did he get to the pool? Can a crocodile hang out all day in a pool of chlorinated water? Granted, this scene ties up what would have been loose ends (watch it to see what I mean) with the plot... but what little I know about animal biology made this a bit hard to believe.

If you like animal-based horror pictures, let me say in all honesty: "Croc" isn't a bad choice and wasn't half as bad as I expected. It beats "Blood Monkey" by miles and even makes the boring "Prey" seem stupid. I'll always be a fan of "Jaws", but if you want a second-rate water movie (and you've seen "Megalodon") then this might be worth a spin. Hey, they made a "Croc 2" and who would make a sequel to a bad movie?

I just finished watching this on Epix. It just happened to come on and I thought, "What the hell." So I left it play. The next thing I knew, I was all interested in the movie. The croc was well used. I was happy to see plenty of shots of real crocs. I liked many of the characters and loathed the greedy assholes. The kind of jerks that you're hoping so much that they get eaten. There were a few side story lines going on too. This is actually a pretty decent movie. I got sucked right in and couldn't stop watching it. I was interested in what was going to happen. The cast performed well and it didn't have many slow spots. I think it's worth a watch for those who like these kinds of movies. I'll watch all kinds of crazy stuff. This is a pretty good movie,