Crocodile Island

This has got to be the worst directing I've ever seen in a movie to date! One of the worst movies I've watched in my life!

The prologue to Chinese monster movie Crocodile Island is hilarious: a CGI WWII bomber, flying over the Sea of Dragon Triangle in the North Pacific, runs into a flock of CGI prehistoric birds, forcing the crew of the plane to bail out. The men tumble through the sky, the effect achieved through dreadful green screen work. Both activate their parachutes, one man landing on an island, the other snapped out of the air by a giant CGI prehistoric crocodile. The direction is atrocious, the acting laughable, and the special effects cheap and unconvincing.

The rest of the film follows suit.

Cut to the present day, and another plane - a passenger jet - crashes after encountering the prehistoric flock. A handful of survivors crawl from the wreckage and explore the island, where they run into monstrous crocodiles and giant spiders. The monster effects are on a par with Syfy originals such as Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, Lavalantula, Piranhaconda and Dinocroc vs. Supergator: shoddy digital creations that are more funny than they are frightening. The action is incredibly dumb (especially the discovery of a WWII radio, hand grenades and machine gun, all of which are functional), but still manages to be reasonably fun, as the survivors try to avoid being eaten while making their way to a rescue point.

4/10. It's far from great film-making, but sometimes cheap, trashy and technically incompetent can still be entertaining.

"Crocodile Island" is a real thrill ride of survival, relentless in its pace and steeped in action of high order. The exotic locale, impressively backed up with special effects, brings alive the dangers of the titular island, making its encounters with its reptilian occupants really terrifying. While the plot may rely on familiar tropes-and the characters are perhaps a little thin-such is the sheer intensity of the peril they face that these deficiencies are more than made up for. The cast, led by Gallen Lo and Eva Huang, do a sterling job capturing the desperation and resilience needed to survive in such a treacherous landscape. While "Crocodile Island" lacks on several levels regarding deep thoughts or originality, the creature feature fans do get an exciting ride.

I have to say that I was actually lured in by the movie's cover/poster, and with it being a gargantuan creature feature and a Chinese one at that, of course I have to sit down and watch "Ju e dao" (aka "Crocodile Island") from writer Minming Ni.

Well, perhaps the concept idead behind "Ju e dao" was good in thought, spirit and on script paper, but the transition to the screen didn't really make for an impressive movie from directors Shixing Xu and Simon Zhao. Actually, the movie wasn't even mediocre. It was sort of lazy writing actually ,as writer Minming Ni was borrowing a bit too heavily from the Jules Verne novel.

The storyline was just generic and bland to the point where I didn't care about the characters or the storyline itself.

The characters in "Ju e dao" were bland and faceless. I didn't know where one character ended and the next started, because they had zero personalities and zero quirks or traits that would make them unique and likeable. So I didn't invest anything in the character gallery in this 2020 movie.

Then there were the special effects. They were special alright, but not in a good way. It was hard to fathom how such lousy CGI animation and horrible rendered textures would make it to the screen in 2020. It looked awful, and it took away so much enjoyment from the movie. A creature feature with gargantuan creatures is worth nothing without having proper CGI and effects to make them realistic and believable. Yeah, they didn't have that in "Ju e dao", believe you me.

Well, we are not out of the forest just yet. The acting performances in "Ju e dao" were horrible. It was for the most part very, very amateurish, staggering and wooden to look at. And that definitely didn't help to spruce up an otherwise flaccid and pointless character gallery.

You might want to save yourself the anguish and waste of nearly one and a half hour by skipping out on "Ju e dao" entirely. It just simply wasn't an outstanding, enjoyable or memorable movie experience.

My rating of "Ju e dao" lands of a three out of ten stars.

If a child is not scared by a monster crocodile and giant spiders, they may find this a fun watch. The version I watched was the dubbed American version. I have seen a number of Chinese films before, usually with very good CGI, decently filmed, decent dubbing, and often one person who turns out to be almost superhuman in abilities. This is not that type of film. The dubbing was terrible, with a long conversation in Chinese given a couple words subtitle, and some sporadic English. The CGI was not terrible, but flawed. We first see the croc tail in the water, and it seems like that of a normal croc. Then, it comes onto the beach, again not that large. Then it is on the beach, and is it huge. Interesting use of gunpowder to treat a wound. They set up warning pots around their campfire, so they would know if an intruder approaches. But it would take less then a second for the croc to pass the warning pots and eat them all. The storyline states Lu Wenbing shows the honorable aptitudes of family, etc., which may or may not have gotten across. The movie does answer two common questions, however. If getting away from a monster, can any of them not trip, get snagged, not stand dumbfounded, or otherwise fall? And how many bullets does a gun hold? For the first, not really. And the second, more than you could ever believe. And now it is perfectly clear that Chinese film makers have the ability to provide a real stinker just like some American film distributors.