When a supposedly endangered crocodile is accidentally-released into the wild, a scientist teams with a former crocodile hunter to help track the beast down before it endangers the locals while avoiding the hunter who illegally bought the animal.
This was an overall enjoyable if slightly flawed effort. One of the biggest pluses here is the fact that there's a lot of time spent with a real crocodile in here, something that adds a lot of believability to the attacks and stalking done here by letting the cast interact with a physical being for once. Keeping the shots brief until the finale is also quite impressive at not overexposing the limited effects either so that they have a greater impact but more importantly allows the danger to come a lot more naturally with a realistic creature on display which is a great advantage in a creature feature. Likewise, those early attacks aren't bad at all either with a sparkling attack in the sewers while looking for several disappearances in the area and it even leads into a fine escape attempt from a car during the attack which furthers the action further. A secondary attack on swimmers after leaving a baited attempt to track it leads to some fun as well, and it all builds nicely to the finale where everything comes into play as the attack on the hideout leads to not only a firefight with the illegal hunters but also a lot of crocodile stalking and killing which helps it's extended length quite effectively throughout here. Otherwise, this one does tend to run into problems with the fact that the large majority of time is spent in here not doing much of anything. There's not a lot of attacks at all so the croc is kept off-screen a lot so it tends to feel like an afterthought to the two main human drama stories in the relationship between the hunter and his estranged daughter as well as his burgeoning romance with the scientist as they travel around the countryside with the reporter who's some of the most aggravating comic relief in the genre, and in the end this ends up leaving a large section of time without any attacks or action scenes to really try to reel in viewers. Likewise, the fact that this supposedly sets up the sequel in much the same manner doesn't really do much of anything at all in this one and comes off as rather lame and hackneyed to utilize such a finish, but it's more about how long and lifeless the scenes between the attacks really are here.
Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity.
