Crocodile 2: Death Swamp
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Movie Reviews of Crocodile 2: Death Swamp
Movie Review: SEQUELS FALL SHORT.
Summary: 3 Stars
I ENJOYED THIS ONE, BUT NOT AS MUCH AS THE ORIGINAL. I GUESS MOST SEQUELS JUST DON'T QUITE MAKE IT. AT ANY RATE, I INTEND TO ADD IT TO MY COLLECTION, EVENTUALLY, AND ENJOY SEEING IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.Movie Review: That Croc Chomps 'Em Up Good!
Summary: 3 Stars
Bank robbers, a highjacking, AND a giant killer crocodile in the same movie! What more could you ask for?Movie Review: Fly Air Acapulco...crocodile free since 2001.
Summary: 2 Stars
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
Movie Review: OK movie...but doesn't make the cut
Summary: 2 Stars
Some decent-for-a-direct-to-video effects don't really make for the fact that the storyline...and pretty much whole script in general...just flat out fails to deliver.The effects really are hit-and-miss. The CG croc isn't all that bad, and the models they use are well done. The chopping scenes are cool too, but when the croc holds their victims in its mouth beforehand it comes out looking campy - it looks like a ride at Universal Studios the way the mechanical head bobs up and down. By the way, why does the croc always manage to catch people so that they lie perfectly straight in its mouth? Does any one else notice that? The helicopter explosion at the end was poorly done too - I mean come on, who can't tell that's a toy chopper?
The storyline starts out OK (albeit the awful shoot-out, which was perfectly described by Chadwick Saxelid in their reviewr below) but eventually suffers simply because its too cliche. A group of people are stranded in the middle of no where (a passenger plane crashes in a swamp), and as usual there are baddies along to take charge (how'd they get guns past the metal detectors?). The croc picks off passenger and baddie one by one.
Some essense is added when the boyfriend of a stewardess on the plane tries to rescue her with the help of a local American pilot (the only real likable, or competant, character in the film). They land their chopper and go looking for the gang and meet up with them. The croc corners them all in a warehouse.
I would like to dub this house the "Drop Off" because for some reason people have a habit of FALLING OFF THE EDGE in this freaking place. I can't explain this phenomenon, but five or six times the characters fall off higher levels into the water below, one time being right after they just rescued a character that had already fallen off the edge.
The ending of the movie makes the past hour and a half pretty much a waste of your time. The boyfriend, stewardess, pilot, and head baddy reach the chopper and - huzzah, the pilot turns on the hero and heroine and takes the baddy away instead. Then in flight he turns on the baddy and kills him using the worst catch line of all: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." (whoever wrote that line in needs to be shot) It is revealed that he only did that to pick off the last baddy and is now heading back to pick up his friends...
...then huzzah, the croc (who we all thought was dead) leaps out of the water and pulls the chopper into the water where it explodes.
Don't worry about the last two characters, they find a destroyed raft nearby...and it's INFLATABLE...and it STILL WORKS...and it has a MOTOR...and it HAS A LOT OF GAS! In fact it has so much gas when the croc attacks they just pour it into the water and light in on fire with a lighter that...came from...elves.....
So yeah, I wouldn't watch this unless you're in the mood. Watch it late on Saturday nights on the Sci-Fi Channel or some thing...
Movie Review: Tick Tock....
Summary: 2 Stars
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.