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DinoCroc

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"The Jeff Foxworthy Show" is responsible for a number of careers, namely those of Haley Joel Osment, Jonathan Lipnicki, Bill Engvall, and, perhaps the biggest star of them all, Matt Borlenghi. Yes, you know him, star of stage and screen, and obviously fond of monster crocodiles, being that "DinoCroc" is his second foray into crocdom. His other "croc" film was "Blood Surf," which is actually a very funny B-flick.

This time around, Borlenghi actually gives it a really good ol' college try as Tom, resident of a sleepy little town with a huge reservoir and a slimy corporate science firm, Gereco Laboratories. It's Gereco who's responsible for unleashing the dinocroc on the innocent people of Tom's tiny town. They also attempt to cover up the death and destruction that the local sheriff (the underused Charles Napier) and his dogcatcher daughter are trying to make sense of.

Gereco is headed up by the sinisterly sexy Joanna Pacula, who sends out well-meaning Dr. Campbell to capture the escaped beast. You may recognize Campbell (Bruce Weitz) from his days as the lovable little "Animal" from "Hill Street Blues." He fails in his initial attempt to snag the beast, so in comes Dick(Costas Mandylor). Think of Mandylor as the real "Crocodile Hunter," Steve Irwin if Irwin were a tad bit of a bumhole who doesn't follow-up too well on his croc captures. You'll understand what I mean if you watch the whole flick.

As the movie rolls along at a decent pace, we are introduced to three-legged Lucky, the wonder mutt, and Tom's little brother (Jake Thomas), who also happens to be Hilary Duff's little brother from "Lizzie Maguire." *Spoiler* He has quite an intense run-in with the croc, leading lovers of Lizzie's lil' bro weeping in the aisles.

As a whole, this flick is pretty good. The croc doesn't look too bad, though he seems to be standing under a spotlight every time he runs through the dark trees. I'll agree with other reviewers that this film's ending is somewhat silly, but the rest of the film is just so doggone fun that I'll let the conclusion slide.

If you enjoy creature features, "DinoCroc" will suffice. It's not on the same level as "Anaconda" or "Lake Placid," and it's nowhere near "Jurassic Park," but "DinoCroc" will pass away a sleepy Sunday afternoon quite easily, and you won't feel completely cheated of your time.

It is not often that a novelization comes out months and months before the movie gets released, but it did with this film. So having read the book almost a year earlier I was anxious to watch this one as soon as I could get my hands on it. A big medical firm has gotten a hold of a rare fossil and is using the DNA in some experiments.

But one of the test animals breaks out and escapes into a nearby swamp/lake. With accelerated growth and a huge appetite, the company knows they must retrieve the animal quickly. But they don't seem to react quickly enough as the creature grows faster than they expect. An Australian crocodile hunter is brought in. Together with the local animal control officer and the sheriff they set out to track and stop the beast.

This could easily have felt like a fifth movie in the Carnosaur series (Carnosaur 1-3, Raptor) but other than the accelerated growth there is no connection. This one is fresh and new. Sort of a cross between a Jurassic Park move and a giant crocodile movie. The acting was reasonable and some of the scenes where handles extremely well (i.e. the meshed scenes as the boy looks for his dog while his brother stays home). An above average dino flick that makes typical Corman use of building suspense instead of overabundant special effects. Check it out.

The undemanding viewer who, like yours truly, grew up on guilty pleasures like this should find much to enjoy with "DinoCroc." This initially aired on the SciFi Channel two years ago and, for what it is, I have to say the movie is actually pretty well made. Anybody familiar with "Jaws" or its many myriad clones over time will undoubtedly already know the story here by heart. Which is not to say this feature doesn't deserve some measure of credit. Instead of a marauding shark, we are treated to a carnivorous prehistoric hybrid that embarks on a horrific rampage after escaping a poorly operated research facility.

Director Kevin O'Neill obviously did not possess the bloated budget of Steven Spielberg or James Cameron. But he still managed to crank out a fairly decent and fun little film. I got particular kicks out of the titular creature, provided rather impressively by the team at Ronin Digital Entertainment. The effect, at least in my opinion, comes off way better on DVD than it did on television.

The DVD, itself, boasts a clean transfer with crisp sound and vibrant color. While there are no special features to speak of, I would still recommend this film to anyone looking to fill a rainy afternoon with cheap thrills. It certainly won't win any awards for Best Picture, but it does offer a prime example of the small miracles that can be achieved with a limited budget and adequate direction. By all means, give it a look.

Dinocroc (2004) is a rather by the numbers creature feature, with some uninteresting characters, and sparse special effects, produced by the legendary Roger Corman, and directed by Kevin O'Neill. Following up on a theme, the pair would go on to do Supergator (2007), and Dinocroc vs. Supergator (2010). previously collaborated on the film Dinocroc (2004).

In Dinocroc, the Gereco Corporation is doing genetic research, apparently crossing dinosaur DNA with that of a crocodile. The results are successful, but unfortunately (surprise!) the creature escapes from the lab. Gereco's Paula Kennedy (Joanna Pacula) is trying to keep a lid on things, and Dr. Lance Campbell (Bruce Weitz) is in charge of field operations. Also involved are Diane Harper (Jane Longenecker), an animal control officer, her father (Charles Napier) the Grant's Lake sheriff, and her ex-lover and herpetologist, Tom Banning (Matthew Borlenghi). Aussie Dick Sydney (Costas Mandylor), a crocodile hunter, is brought in to try and recapture the creature, but the first attempt on Grant's Lake is a complete disaster.

With a weak story, and unlikeable, irritating characters, the film is watchable, but really doesn't have a lot going for it. Production values are decent, but probably to reduce costs, the beast is seldom seen, and when it is, it is mostly at night, or in the murky depths. Special effects aren't that big a factor until the very end, where the creature does meet a satisfying end.

Dinocroc is mildly entertaining at best, and what really doesn't work, is the overbearing "Omenesque" operatic type music that plays incessantly. Often on the schedule at SyFy, the subsequent Corman/O'Neil efforts Supergator (2007), and Dinocroc vs. Supergator (2010), offer more emphasis on special effects and gore.

From the Roger Corman Sci-Fi Collection comes DinoCroc (2004), a film, in my mind, whose only real distinction was that it was marginally better than Frankenfish (2004), another giant amphibious/reptile monster released about the same time (as far as I can tell, Corman had nothing to do with the latter). Directed by visual effects artist Kevin O'Neill, the film stars Matt Borlenghi ("Police Academy: The Series", Krocodylus), Jane Longenecker (The Coroner), and Costas Mandylor (Mobsters, Dr. Chopper), who was chosen by People magazine of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World in 1991, an accolade, apparently which, did little to help his film career seeing as some 15 years later he's still appearing in dreck like this...also appearing is Jake Thomas ("Lizzie McGuire"), Price Carson (Payback), Joanna Pacula (Gorky Park), Bruce Weitz ("Hill Street Blues", The O.J. Simpson Story), and Charles Napier (Rambo: First Blood Part II, The Silence of the Lambs), whom I remember most fondly from the movie The Blues Brothers (1980) as Tucker McElroy, the crazed redneck musician who turned his RV into a U-Boat.

After a short and seemingly meaningless sequence in the Australian outback, we're now in U.S., learning all about how a biotech company called Gereco Laboratories has been developing some sort of accelerated growth technology based on extracts taken from the remains of a prehistoric remains of a crocodile, as the possibilities are endless. As expected, one of their enhanced critters escapes, following the death of a stupid scientist, and thus begins the usual corporate cover up. Shortly after this we meet the local animal control technician, a pretty, bony blonde named Diane Harper (Longenecker), as she runs into a kid named Michael Banning (Thomas), who's posting flying about his missing three legged dog aptly named Lucky (insert joke here). Seems Michael's older brother, Tom (Borlenghi), who's a sculptor, is back in town, caring for Michael since their father's death. Apparently Tom and Diane, whose father is the sheriff (played by Napier), once had a thing, back when she was jailbait. Anyway, Gereco, in an effort to track down and destroy their escaped experiment, brings in a specialist in the form of Richard Sydney (Mandylor), an Australian herpetologist and professional croc hunter...he must be the real deal, as he's got the stupid hat, sports a ridiculously large knife, likes beer, and uses words like `crikey' and `mate' a lot...so, as Tom and Diane renew their relationship (now that she's legal), Michael goes missing (he went off looking for his dog), and some stupid hunters get killed. The now gigantic beastie has since found a way out of the reserve, and into a neighboring recreational lake, followed in hot pursuit by an odd foursome including Diane, Richard, a scientist from Gereco named Dr. Campbell (Weitz), and Tom, who's along, I guess, for his valuable sculpting skills. As expected, a handful of people get killed, and the sheriff organizes a futile hunting party (to which another handful of people get killed), all eventually leading up to a final showdown as our plucky heroes set a trap to take out the massive monster once and for all...

For what it was (a cheap Jurassic Park, with Jaws underpinnings, knock off), this movie wasn't all bad. It did, however, feature the most idiotic series of events I seen in a long time within the last fifteen minutes or so, which I'll talk about later. The story felt thrown together, as the characters were all anemic and without any real substance or value. Probably the worst, and most clichéd, were Pacula as the evil, greedy corporate spokesperson/scientist Ms. Kennedy, and Mandylor as Crocodile Dumbdee...what's so very interesting is that while Mandylor actually hails from Australia, his portrayal of a big time Australian croc hunter is almost as ridiculous as if I had played the part. Yeah, the role was poorly written (heck, the whole film was poorly written), but come on...the best advice he gives throughout the film is that of `If any of you see that ugly mug, shoot right between the eyes.' Gee, thanks...I would have never come up with that on my own. As for the rest, Longenecker's an attractive little minx and actually comes off half decent, at least up until the end. Napier plays the same kind of role I've see him play many times before, and Weitz is barely there...as far as Borlenghi, his role seemed utterly pointless. If you had taken his and his character's brother out of the story, they wouldn't have been missed one bit. Borlenghi, whose less the hero type and more the `annoying secondary character soon to be killed' type, comes off like a lame, lesser Richard Grieco, if you can possibly wrap your mind around that. The various characters run around acting all stupid, doing stupid things, living or dying only because it's obviously in the script. The CGI special effects were slightly better than average, and we do get to see quite a bit of the creature during the latter half of the movie, though I grew tired of those point of view monster shots, only because it seems every half baked monster flick uses the technique...the worst parts of this film for me come during the last fifteen minutes or so, during the final confrontation, as idiocy reigns supreme among the characters. After an A-Team sequence (the main characters are welding together some sort of monster catching contraption out of corrugated metal), the sheriff decides to requisition himself a whole mess of mutts from the pound to use as bait, which sets his daughter, Diane, the sympathetic dog catcher, off on a rant, as she can catch `em, but she can't bring herself to put them down, which is also part of job, Sweetie, like it or not (early on she conveniently transfers the blame of her not doing her job on those who don't spay or neuter their pets). This sets up a silly sequence where Diane and Tom, the latter wielding a portable welding rig, are racing to free all the doggies before the mammoth dinocroc can gobble them up (the dogs were placed in such a way as to lure the creature into the trap). Now don't get me wrong, I like dogs, but if it meant my own survival, and catching a creature that had killed any number of my fellow townsfolk, I could see sacrificing some mangy strays, who should have been put to sleep long ago had someone been doing her job, for the better good...besides, given her reluctance to put the strays to sleep, they were beginning to pile up. And it get better, better meaning even more idiotic...after the creature is trapped and supposedly killed, no one bothers to check whether or not the creature is even dead, opting instead to pack up and take off, leaving behind our plucky hero couple. Gee, guess what happens next? Gee, I wonder...

The picture quality, presented in widescreen (1.78:1), enhanced for 16 X 9 TVs, looks very good, and the Dolby Digital stereo comes through well enough. About an hour in it did seem like the audio dropped out for about twenty seconds, but the script up until that point, I doubt I missed much. There aren't any extras included, but there are chapter stops, for what it's worth. The movie rates about two stars, but I'm tossing in an extra one due to relatively decent effort provided for the special effects.

Cookieman108

If I learned anything from this movie it's that three legged dogs can run pretty fast.

Ever since the 60s, Roger Corman has masterminded cheesy horror flicks for fans of the genre. From his days of the Edgar Allan Poe adaptations right up to this fun creature feature, Corman has delivered the kind of movies he's become famous for. In this one, a genetically engineered dinosaur/crocodile escapes from the Gereco Laboratories and starts eating up the locals. Costas Mandylor is the hammy Australian specialist brought in to capture the beast; Jane Longenecker and Matt Berlenghi (he's pretty awful) are the lovers caught up in the mess; Bruce Weitz and Joanna Pacula are the lab bad guys and ubiquitous Charles Napier is the sheriff, also Longenecker's papa. The creature effects are fairly decent and the movie has some surprises, including killing off a character one doesn't usually kill off in a horror movie. Not a classic but a good movie for fans of the genre.

Dinocroc is an interesting mix of old school (some might say prehistoric) monster movies and new school Syfy movies (some might say crock).

On the dino-side, Dinocroc hews closely to the rules of Jaws. Monster shows up on beach, trailed by mysterious hunter who claims he can kill it (Costas Mandylor as Dick Sydney...you read that right). Everyone thinks he's a loon until the monster kills enough people to make the local sheriff (Charles Napier as Sheriff Harper) believe him. Somewhere in the middle of all this is a confused everyman (Matthew Borlenghi as Tom Banning) who's just trying to get the girl (Jane Longenecker as Diane Harper) and move on with his life. And of course there's always the scientist (Joanna Pacula as Paula Kennedy) who wants to keep the animal alive...for SCIENCE!

On the crock-side, there's the usual stupid Syfy tropes: a mutant monster, "monstercam" vision, a bite so fast and lethal that it leaves limbs twitching in its wake, critter speeds that rival motorboats, a grizzled actor spouting one-liners (that'd be Napier), and an evil corporation (GERECO) trying to cover its tracks.

Borlenghi is a poor-man's Tony Danza, mumbling and moping his way through the film. Fortunately, Longenecker does a competent job of making their relationship believable, if a little one-sided...it's hard to conceive of anyone finding Banning interesting.

And yet, despite these flaws Dinocroc isn't all that bad. The beast in question is carefully rendered, doesn't shift in size between scenes, and interacts appropriately with its prey. The director wisely avoids revealing the beast in all its glory until the final confrontation. And when we do finally see Dinocroc, we finally understand how it got its name.

If the fact that Dinocroc looks a lot like a baby Godzilla doesn't bother you, then maybe this movie isn't such a crock after all.

Here we have a pretty good monster story that eventually gets
bogged down by too much character devellopment that we dont care
for, stupid script writting, stupid descisions done in the movie. Without giving too much info,,,here's a example...the
monster gets killed...yippee, everybody turns around and leaves without checking closesly that yes....its dead.
Anyway, im glad Roger Corman stills got his hands in movies, but he should stick to monsters and leave the dramas to others.

I watched this movie on the SciFi channel. I guess it got the 'R' rating because of some bad language which they bleep out on tv.

It's pretty good I thought to watch on a Saturday afternoon. I sometimes watch those movies on the SciFi channel for something different. I actually like relating to the characters as much as the monsters.

The main character is really cute. She's the sherrif's daughter and runs the local SPCA.

There's the no nonsense sheriff. The croc hating hunter from Australia. The hapless boyfriend who can't do anything right but turns out to the hero.

My favorite character is Dr. Campbell. As often happens with mad scientists he eventually becomes the victim of his own creation.

This movie is interesting for me because there really were prehistoric crocodiles which were much larger than the ones we have today.

Just as crocodiles wait by the side of the river and grab deer today so those ancient crocs grabbed other dinosaurs.

Jeff Marzano

Snakehead Terror

Gojira / Godzilla Deluxe Collector's Edition (Gojira/Godzilla [1954] / Godzilla, King of the Monsters [1956])

Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla / Godzilla vs. Destoroyah

Godzilla 2000

Spiders II: Breeding Ground

Raptor Island

Hammerhead

I'd have to say this is one of the better Sci-Fi films. It was good. The Dinocroc looked greatly animated, compared to other Sci-Fi and SyFy films.