? As if avoiding the
crossfire in an ongoing civil war weren’t enough, the good people of Burundi also
have to contend with a killer crocodile named Gustav wending the waters of Lake
Tanganyika. But the real question is, which of the American journalists sent to
investigate will end up as a reptilian aperitif?
+ It’s not every
movie that incorporates ethnic warfare into a story about a bloodthirsty beast.
If you watched Anaconda or Cujo and said to yourself, yes, but
how does this play into regional geopolitics, this could well be your movie.
The star of the movie is Dominic Purcell of TV’s Prison Break, but
cameraman Orlando Jones gets the funny lines. Sample: “This is Africa, the
cradle of civilization. This is where Bryant Gumbel comes from.”
- Unfortunately, even
though the dangerous men and dangerous animal provide dual sources of peril,
the whole thing comes off as kind of toothless. True, a subplot involves the
crew getting the goods on a local warlord, but as a thriller it’s extremely
tepid. The best thing about the exotic setting is that it provides nice
scenery. (Filming was in South Africa.) As for the horror aspect, there are
surprisingly few opportunities for the crazy creature to bite. This is just as
well, since the glimpses we do get aren’t especially impressive.
= *3/4 I saw Anacondas:
The Hunt for the Blood Orchid a couple years ago, and say what you will
about silly plots, it delivered the scary goods. This comes off like someone
got a hold of a few pages of the Blood Diamond script and decided to
make a horror ripoff. An on-screen title tells us this is actually “based on
true events,” but it’s a croc.
viewed 1/13/07 at Moorestown
No comments:
Post a Comment