Customer Reviews

Crocodile 2: Death Swamp

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Although director Gary Jones (Mosquitoes, Spiders - am I sensing a trend here?) does put together a few nice scenes, he is hampered by a script that is simply braindead. A group of unsubtle thugs rob a bank (it's a pretty hilarious sequence, what with the cops running into a shoot out wearing zero body armor), hijack a storm tossed plane (whipping guns out of their boots!?!), and crash in a swamp. Said thugs then gather the survivors together to carry their loot and ventilate an uppity crocodile after it attacks someone. Too bad said croc is only a wee lass and its 30 foot mother shows up a short time later. Mom is not pleased to find her baby dead and goes on the rampage...

Oh, yeah...and the boyfriend hires Martin Kove (at least its a paycheck bud) to search for his girlfriend since no one else seems interested in looking for a downed passenger airliner. The thugs bicker in Tarantino fashion (i.e. they use profanity WAY too much) while the croc picks people off one by one. This makes the first movie look like a horror classic.

I am assuming that "Crocodile 2: Death Swamp" is a sequel of sorts to Tobe Hooper's "Crocodile." So many films about killer crocodiles have come out in the last thirty years that one loses track of which ones go where after awhile. The recent resurgence in popularity of killer monster films has seen a slew of new croc flicks, along with films about angry octopi, malevolent squid, cranky dinosaurs, oversized snakes, and that venerable standby, sharks. You can bet your bottom dollar that some Hollywood hack has made a film about a creature attacking humans if the animal in question has teeth, fangs, tentacles, paws, or antlers. In short, if the beastie in question slithers or crawls through the jungle, swims in the ocean, or soars through the air you can expect to see a monstrous version of that creature appearing on a DVD near you soon. I'm surprised I haven't seen more of these films considering all of the low budget crud I routinely watch. Off the top of my head, I recall seeing "Shark Attack 3," "Crocodile," "Blood Surf," and this film. Out of those four, three of them deal with giant rubber or CGI crocodiles feasting on groups of dimwits and miscreants. Needless to say, all four are quite cheesy.

"Crocodile 2: Death Swamp" (at least you know what you're getting into with a title like that) isn't half bad until the end, when something so ridiculous occurs that you can't help but roar with laughter. It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out the plot, either. A group of bank robbers attempts to escape the authorities by transporting their ill-gotten gains south of the border via an airplane bound for Mexico. An incident onboard requires the plane to head back to the United States, so the criminals flip out and promptly hijack the plane. Of course, after the obligatory scenes in which the robbers terrorize the passengers, the aircraft goes down in a Mexican swamp. Most of the passengers and crew perish in the disaster, but the few that survive soon find themselves at the mercy of the remaining hijackers. I see no reason to bore you with a complete cast list, so I shall only mention a few of the more "important" characters. The leader of the gang is a foulmouthed thug named Max (Darryl Theirse). Then there is another goon named Sol (Jon Sklaroff). The most important survivor is a flight attendant named Mia (Heidi Noelle Lenhart). There are others, of course, but they serve the purpose of providing cannon fodder for the crocodile soon to emerge on the scene.

Anyway, after staggering out of the wrecked plane, Max and Sol insist that Mia and the passengers carry their bags of money. They also shoot a baby crocodile, an action that leads to the coming slaughter, namely the mother of the slain crocodile turning up to seek revenge. A subplot, the only one in fact, involves Mia's boyfriend Zach (Chuck Walczak) trying to figure out why her plane never returned to the airport. He quickly enlists the services of an alcoholic tracker and helicopter pilot named Roland (Martin Kove paying his credit card bill) to head out into the swamp in search of the unlucky Mia. Meanwhile, the robbers and their hostages engage in a dangerous game of cat and mouse. At one point, Mia and her fellow sufferers manage to escape into the swamp with predictable results: the croc emerges, scarfs down one of the passengers, and the robbers recapture them. There's some bunkum about Max trying to reach a place with the money, but it's only an excuse to make the characters slog through the muck so the crocodile can tear them to shreds. "Crocodile 2" grinds to a conclusion after a showdown between the croc, the robbers, Mia, and Zach and Roland occurs in some abandoned building. Just when you think it's all over, the beast lunges out of the water and pulls Roland's helicopter out of the air! Ridiculous!

In spite of itself, "Crocodile 2: Death Swamp" is a lot of fun. There are a few niggling problems and plot inconsistencies to deal with, i.e. figuring out how the robbers managed to get guns on the plane, but these difficulties won't bog down the film unless you let them. Heidi Noelle Lenhart isn't too bad an actress in the lead role of Mia, and she's cute enough to maintain interest long after the endless trekking through the swamp slows the film down. The only recognizable name in the cast, Martin Kove, essentially phones in his performance. As for the crocodile, it's less cheesy than you would think, and far less cheesy than the one in "Blood Surf." Heck, even the plane crash looks good for a low budget clunker. The ridiculous scene involving the crocodile pulling the helicopter out of the air is classic, a scene so gut busting hilarious that I ought to give the film an extra star just for the sheer nerve it took to throw this into the script. It's right up there with the shark that growls as it chomps down on a victim in "Shark Attack 3."

Despite its obvious low budget and many mindless attributes, I feel somehow mean spirited condemning this film. Maybe the spirit of the holidays is making me feel more generous than normal, but I'll recommend "Crocodile 2" to those viewers who know and appreciate cheese when they see it. Alas, the world is less of a place due to the lack of a commentary track or behind the scenes features on the disc. We only get trailers for "Crocodile," "Crocodile 2," and "Octopus 2" as extras. A movie that makes you laugh this hard in spots can't be all that bad, can it?

A few years after Crocodile ended the dreaded flat dog returns. In crocodile to some bank robbers hickjack a plane which crashes into the swamp. The survivers are held hostage. Shortly after crash one of the crew is attack and killed by a small crocodile.

Which is killed by the robbers. All hell breeks lose. The crocodile killed was Flat Dogs baby. She return an goes on a kill streak again. Lots of gore and violence a little bit more fight back.

All the robbers are devoured. Unlike the first one the second one has a good ending. This time Flat dog is killed blown to pieces.

I saw the censored television version of it on scifi. Better than the original. If you like this movie I also recomend Crocodile, Alligator, Alligator II the Mutation ,Blood Surf, and lake Placid. This movie is R rated this movie is not for litte kids.

Crocodile 2 is almost as much fun as the first one. The CGI effects are ok, and some of the crocodile deaths were done well (the death roll). The plot was a little bit silly and the bad guys were such WANNABES! Who else wanted to go into the screen and beat them over the head?! They were so annoying! f this and f that. The movie was pretty good, but it would have been alot better, had the bad guys been killed alot earlier. (like that bad guys just got them to the swamp, were eaten and then the people were left to survive on their own.) If you liked the first one, then you will probobly like this one. The gore was okay, and the acting was very good on the part of the flight assistant. Wortha rental. I bought it to complete my collecton for a very low price.
OVERALL SCORE:78
plot:15/20
direction: 16/20
cast: 15/20
fun:18/20
special effects:17/20

I wasn't overly concerned about watching Crocodile 2: Death Swamp (2001) without having seen the original film titled Crocodile (2000), directed by Tobe Hooper, as if my experience with shoddy movies has taught me anything, it's that sequels to shoddy movies are often so only in terms of the title, and rarely have much, if anything, to do with the previous film...co-written by Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch, both of whom were involved in the original film, and directed by Gary Jones, who worked on such television series as "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys" and "Xena: Warrior Princess", Crocodile 2 features Heidi Lenhart ("Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills", Red Meat), Paul Walker look-a-like Chuck Walczak (Flush), and Martin Kove (The Last House on the Left, Death Race 2000), probably best known for his role in the The Karate Kid films as the psychotic Cobra Kai Sensei John Kreese. Also appearing is Jon Sklaroff (Three Kings), Darryl Theirse (The Jerky Boys), David Valcin ("Two of a Kind"), James Parks (Kill Bill: Vol. 1), Steve Moreno (Followers), and Dan Martin (Sleepwalkers, Bloodfist IV: Die Trying), as Jerry, the pilot.

The movie begins with a bank robbery perpetrated by a group of foul mouthed masked men, who don't seem that particularly bright since they seem to be calling each other by their real names. Some dough is stolen, and the men make a bloody escape. Next we see Mia (Lenhart), a pretty, skinny brunette with a butch haircut standing in front of an airport in California, dressed as a flight attendant, opening a present from her boyfriend Zach (Walczak), who's waiting for her in Mexico. The present is an engraved cigarette lighter, which seems odd as it doesn't appear that she smokes, but I'm sure it will play a pivotal role later on in the story. Turns out the flight she's working, which is headed to Mexico, is also the one the robbers we saw at the beginning are traveling on, disguised as musicians, the loot they've stolen hidden in musical instrument cases. Once in Mexican airspace, the flight encounters some bad weather, is forced to turn around, but the robbers, pulling out concealed weapons (?!), hi-jack the plane, accidentally damage the controls, causing it to crash in a Mexican swamp known as `El Pantano del Diablo', which I think means `the devil's pants' (my Spanish isn't that great). Anyway, after the crash, the coach section's a complete wash (figures), but those in the first class section including Mia, another attendant, a brainy kid named Brian (Moreno), a stupido lawyer named Justin (Valcin), and three of the four robbers all miraculously survive. The bank robbers, who are on some sort of schedule, use the survivors as pack mules to carry the money laden instrument cases, after shooting up a large crocodile that just ate the captain. Turns out the dead croc had family, in that of a much larger croc that took the death personally, and is now stalking the pinheaded bunch now wading through the swamps in search of civilization. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Zack, learning of the plane crash, hires a local tracker with an alcohol problem (he can't get enough) named Roland (Kove) to help find Mia, which they do, along with the gun wielding men and the large, vindictive croc. Will any of them make it out alive? Who knows? Who cares?

I think this film, which was shot in India, set a record in terms of the usage of a profanity that rhymes with truck (begins with the letter "F"), or some variation (the combination of said word with the word `mother' preceding it was used quite often). I counted about 892 instances, but I might be off by a couple, as by the end my brain was in profane mode overload. In the future, perhaps someone could supply the writers an expletive thesaurus, as usage of the same two profanities in a movie, particularly this one, is tiresome, idiotic, and just plain lazy. Mix it up a little...there are plenty of juicy words out there, why limit yourself so? I learned quite a few things during the course of this film like...

1. Security at the Orange County/John Wayne Airport is ridiculously lax, enough so to sneak guns onto a plane.
2. Mexican swamps are oozing with methane gas (and giant crocs)
3. Mexican swamps are conspicuously free of any other usual animal or insect wildlife one would normally expect to see in swamps (except for giant crocs).
4. The airlines (at least Air Acapulco) take their time initiating search and rescue operations when one of their aircraft goes down.
5. Planes used by Air Acapulco are relatively free of any of the normal electronics one would expect to see in a cockpit, you know, the stuff that helps fly the plane.
6. Some guns, particularly those used by the characters in this film, never need reloading, no matter how many consecutive rounds are fired.
7. Never taunt a crocodile from a high vantage point as it will leap from the water and eat you up good.
8. Mexican swamp water isn't like normal water in that if you find yourself submerged in it, only after a few minutes removed you're completely dry.
9. Heidi Lenhart looks awesome in a bikini.

As far as the performers, Heidi Lenhart and Martin Kove seem to be doing the best they can with the rotten material, while the others, including Chuck Walczak, Jon Sklaroff, and Darryl Theirse (the last two playing the main bad guys high on their own machismo) all seem perfectly suited for this dredge, given their apparent lack of acting abilities (Walczak is particularly awful, and that's no mean feat in this film). There's a decent amount of gore, as the mainly CGI croc rips its way through the cast, but the story and the characters are so mired in stupidity it's often difficult to stand more than ten minutes at a time of this feature without rolling your eyes into the back of your head. The level of idiocy does maintain a certain level throughout, but then goes way over the top during the final sequences at the end in a lame attempt to provide a spectacular finale. The directing is so-so, as Jones keeps things moving at a good pace, which is perhaps a credit to the man given the unoriginal material he had to work with here. The crocodile effects (including both CGI and animatronics), supervised by someone named Mehboob `Boom-Boom' Endai, actually looked half decent (for a film that looks like a straight to video release), and they was certainly more interesting to watch than the often annoying, barely there characters, many of whom seem present if only to serve as Hors d' Oeuvres for the toothy menace stalking them. All in all this feature is pretty rotten, with few redeeming aspects that is unless you enjoy gun-toting, idiotic characters spewing forth profanities and being harassed by an angry, vindictive somewhat phony looking reptile for an hour and twenty minutes...capped off with Heidi Lenhart in a bikini (that's about the extend of the skin here).

The picture quality, presented in widescreen (1.78:1) anamorphic, does look good on this DVD, and the 5.1 Dolby Digital audio comes through clean, for the most part (there were one or two scenes where it seemed to drop out momentarily). The only extras, besides English and Spanish subtitles, are a few trailers including one for this film, along with those for Octopus 2 (2001), and Crocodile (2000).

Cookieman108

Ok, now this was stupid. Several foul-mouthed thieves toting guns that never need reloading cause a plane to crash into a Mexican swamp with several hostages. Next thing you know, there's a huge crocodile chasing them around trying toeat them beacause they killed its baby.

Does the "croc's-killing-spree-brought-on-by-harm-to-it's-children" part sound familier? It should. It's the same reason the crocodile started killing people in the first film.

Bad effects, so-so acting, and an over-use of profanity bring an entertaining monster movie worthy of at least three stars down to a 2/5.

And the DVD transition is bloody awful. Plus, all we get for special features is trailers for this film, OCTOPUS 2: RIVER OF FEAR, which was also pretty bad, and Tobe Hopper's CROCODILE.

great movie, loved the way the Crocodile was created. I also enjoyed the special effects in this movies as well as the ending. The ending to this movie was a classin science fiction ending.

This is one of the worst movies I have even seen. It is so bad it cannot even, somewhere down the line , qualify as a cult classic. I will be eternally grateful to one reviewer who went into great lengths to describe the plot and characters of this horrid flik, thereby saving me from having to write a long review.

By now you know the details. Airplane crsh into Mexican swamp. Predictable bad-guy bank robbers terrorize passemgers on plane. Crash into swamp, which doesnt look like any swamp I've ever been in. The aerial images depict a marsh, not a swamp, and the vegetation is all wrong; and there is not a single sound of critters in the night. One of the passengers is the girlfriend of the heroic boyfriend ; nobly, he hires a heroic navy Seal to find her; the choice of aircraft, helicopter, is veryquestionable given the expanse of this terrain; and where are the other recuers?

Naturally, the seal and the hero almost immediately meet up with the baddies and the passengers. Previously, one of the baddies had shot Flathead Jr. and now MOTHER Crocodile is indiscriminately picking off the bad guys and a few good guys.

The rest of the flik concerns the baddies trying to get out with the good guys with foreseeable results. Just about everyone dies at the jaws of FLATTRUCK, or is it FLATHEAD? -- the Seal survives and the chief villain does too;but both perish in the helicopter crash at the jaws of the croc; exceedingly improbable.

The hero and heroine take off in an immaculate zodiac! but Flat is close behind. One of the most ludicrous scenes is the heroine trying to light a lighter so she can set mother on fire. Predictably the lighter won't catch until the very last moment, when for some inexplicable reason heroine regards the flame for a moment! At tis point I was rooting for Flathead. Had flathead gotten 'em, I would have given the movie another star..

A few other reasons I might have given the movie another star:

1) The subtititle;if it was was "deathroll"; there is no such thing as a "death" swamp.
2) Had the heroine had revealing, soaking clothes on m ost of the movie.
3)Had one of the guy passengers ever loosened his tie.
4)Had someone died in a way other than gunshot or at the jawsof FLATCRANIUM.

PLEASE SAVE YOUR MONEY!

I really wanted to like this movie. Unfortunately, they lost me on the plane ride. This was a 2002 movie but even then, I don't believe heavily armed men could board a plane without passing through some safeguards first. The bank robbery was silly enough, the plane sequence beyond stupid (who's going to have a shootout in a cockpit!?). No surprise, the plane crashes and manages to kill almost everyone on board, leaving just enough people to carry the bad guy's luggage. The tough talking bad guys waste a lot of ammo on the first crocodile and must have had a never ending supply because I don't recall seeing them reload at any point in their rampage. Then the second crocodile, having eaten the plane's flight recorder, followed this merry band of wanderers like the tick-tocking croc from Peter Pan. How dumb is that! Having Martin Kove show up to add a little comic relief was sad and desperate; too little way too late. Complicating things with an attempted rape didn't help matters. Overwrought on every level, it's not something I'd care to watch again: not a keeper.

Love shark & Croc movies. Very good movie. The condition of movie was excellent. I would order again from this seller.