Dinocroc
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: D Film: C
Roger Corman has made more money on more bad films than
anyone ever has or will. He also tries
to profit on trends and much larger Hollywood productions. When Steven Spielberg did Jurassic Park,
he answered with Carnosaur.
Sequels followed closely for both.
Costas Mandylor, Bruce Weitz, Joanna Pacula and a large group of
unknowns star in Dinocroc, a 2003 film that lives up to the latter half
of its title.
Yes, somehow for some stupid reason (it always is), an
ancient creature has been resurrected (why did it take so long) by accident and
is now on the loose. Too bad it looks
phonier than many toy versions of the real life creature. When it moves, it looks like a bad
robot. When it roars, it sounds like
one of those amusement park garbage cans that roar when you remember to throw
out garbage. Even for Corman, this is
lame, though it benefits by default from so many major digital productions
looking often (sadly) as bad. This
film’s roar has a big yawn hidden in it.
Disney is issuing (and sometimes reissuing) a bunch of Corman film on
DVD. You can do better with Death
Race 2000.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is on the soft
side and is shot darkly, but even that cannot hide the phoniness of the
monster. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
has just enough Pro Logic surrounds to be the highlight of the film. There are no extras, but you could do better
if you must own such a genre film by getting Alligator (especially the
DTS PAL Anchor Bay import of both films) or if you can find The Great
Alligator (1979) that used a crocodile because the producers could not
afford a cheap alligator. Dinocroc
is not as fun as any of those, but someone is bound to laugh at it.
- Nicholas Sheffo
