The Charge

It's hunting season and you're the prey.

Opening Statement

Watch out! It's a mediocre killer crocodile movie! Run for your life!

Facts of the Case

On the Thailand waterfront, an underwater scourge terrorizes anyone unlucky enough to be swimming nearby. It's a giant crocodile with an unquenchable lust for delicious juicy human flesh, and it's leaving behind a trail of body parts.

A hapless zookeeper named Jack (Peter Tunistra) is caught in the middle of the frenzy when his personal crocs are targeted as the perpetrators of the devouring. But Jack has been set up by a wealthy and corrupt landowner looking to nab his zoo and build a development.

But it is soon clear that Jack's reptiles aren't the one to blame and that a giant rogue croc is the scaly bastard that's been chowing down on the locals (in cahoots, of course, with global warming). Enter Hawkins (Michael Madsen, Bloodrayne), a crusty crocodile hunter that's been tracking the croc for nine months. And then there's some shooting and biting.

The Evidence

Man, life's too short to spend 90 minutes watching crappy movies about killer crocodiles. Croc is a poorly acted, poorly plotted, derivative piece of reptile chomping, saddled with horrid special effects and line readings straight out of a middle school production of Peter Pan.

What's there to say? There's virtually nothing to make this film a must-view for anyone. Again, saying something stinks is relative, because we all know there are more than enough truly worthless movies floating around (and they're nearly all done by the clowns who wrote Date Movie), but comparatively speaking, as far as direct-to-TV horror-thrillers go, Croc is about as lame and uninspired as they come.

So this croc lurks around, eats some people (including a kid, which was surprising) finds his way into the swimming pool of a rich guy, tears that dude apart, and retreats back to his lair where he waits for Michael Madsen to grunt and shoot him a lot in the face. And that's it. Along the way you'll be treated to some kills that range between unremarkable to unintentionally hilarious. The latter happens when the camera lingers on the special effects, which are low-budget and shoddy.

The CGI croc is primitive, swimming around in all its jittery, low-res glory and when it starts chewing on its prey the suspension of disbelief goes bye-bye. Once in a while the special effects guys throw down a practical effect, which is pretty much limited to a static croc prop with its jaws open, but at least it looks a lot more realistic.

Madsen phones it in, but at least he's a recognizable face. It's a drop-off in role quality from Bloodrayne, but surprisingly not that drastic. Tuinistra is a little more into it.

Anything else I need to add to this review? Because I'm already bored.

Video: 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. The transfer looks clean and the sound works. Hooray. No extras except for a batch of previews.

Closing Statement

What happens when a croc eats a bunch of people and no one cares? I don't know. I don't care.

The Verdict

Turn this one into shoes.

Similar Decisions

• Willard (2003)
• The Sandman: Special Edition
• Insanitarium
• Bone Dry

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