Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. I liked WOLF CREEK. I didn't think it was a redefinition of the horror genre or anything, but I thought it demonstrated excellent chops on the part of Greg McLean, the director, and when he announced a giant crocodile movie as his follow-up, I was immediately intrigued. So how's it look? Let's see what our first spy has to say:
Just got back from an advance screening of the new Greg McLean giant croc movie Rogue. The audience was told that we were one of the first to see the film and that it was still an early cut. Greg McLean and several of the Weinstein people were in attendance and I was asked to stick around after the screening with a group of about 20 people to give some feedback to McLean and the suits. Michael Vartan plays a travel writer who is on assignment in Australia. He takes a ride on tour guide Radha Mitchell’s boat to go croc-seeing with a bunch of tourists. They go to investigate a distress signal flare in the distance. Upon investigating the flare their boat is attacked by a large croc and they are stranded on a tiny piece of land in the middle of the river, with the tide rising and the croc encircling them. Hilarity ensues. At this point I will digress and say that I am a big fan of Wolf Creek. I was excited to see what McLean could do with a bigger budget. I was psyched for this movie, but walked in with tempered expectations. That being said, I guess that my Greg McLean killer croc movie-going experience can best be summed up in the immortal words of Caddyshack’s Bishop- “ratfarts”. There are a lot of things wrong with this movie. So many that I will get out the good things first before I drop trough. The croc looks great- out of the park. They definitely spent their money on these croc effects, and it shows. The cinematography is beautiful and it doesn’t hurt that John Jarratt is again the f-ing man. Now for the poo. The pacing is often deathly slow, and I found myself praying for people to be eaten. The movie literally consists of people crossing a river using a rope strung between two trees and then Michael Vartan following the croc into his lair. This should take 20 minutes. It feels like 3 hours. There is no chemistry between Vartan and Mitchell and I found myself hoping for more shots of the croc. This is one movie where they try to Jaws the screen time the croc gets, and it just makes the movie slower. I am hoping that the movie I saw was really an “unfinished print” and that they will go back and make changes. From the response of the 20 people I was with at the Q and A, a lot of things have to change before this one gets put in the theaters. As I was leaving the look on Greg McLean’s face was heart-wrenching, and you could actually see the suits circle in on him as we left the theater. I hope this movie gets sorted out. I think there could be something there, beneath the surface. If you use this, call me Otakar G.
And does our second spy agree?
Hello Harry, I wrote a review about a month back for Man of the Year, this review is for a very different film. I attended a screening in New York of the new Greg "Wolf Creek" McLean horror-fest "Rogue." It is the story of an American journalist (Michael "I sucked it up on Alias" Vartan) who goes to Australia to write an article for a travel magazine. The particular travel experience he is writing about is a boat tour of crocodiles down a very scary and unpopulated river. Our boat captain is the lovely Rhada Mitchell and the rest of the passengers are an interesting group of character actors. one of which is John Jarrett who was scary as all hell in McLean's previous film Wolf Creek. Well the tour goes just fine until a passenger sees a distress flair and the gang has to head further down river into what Mitchell calls "sacred territory" complete with a huge native cliff wall drawing of a crocodile. Well when they get way down river they find an overturned boat and then BAM! something huge takes down their boat and they are stuck on a little island that will be gone when the river tide comes in. The rest of the movie is basically them trying to find away off the island and trying to prevent themselves from getting eaten by a monster of a croc'. Let me first start with the bad here. Number one is Michael Vartan. I don't really understand how he keeps getting work. He was always my least favorite part of Alias and I mean if you don't get better after 5 years of playing the same character what hope is there for you. Here I actually liked him near the start of the film when he is being kind of a dick, and funny but once the drama starts I just don't believe him. And at the end when the real supposed terror kicks in he is actually laughable. I never knew there was a talent in yelling a name but there must be cause he doesn't have it. Other than Vartan the film suffers from some pacing issues it clocks in at about 1:40 but really should be ten minutes shorter. It also falls into a series of horror movie traps with singular big problems replacing real character traits (cancer, dead wife et.) And the ending is really pretty toothless, no pun intended, and all too predictable. The good, The movie is basically a stylistic update of just about every "giant underwater creature" movie ever made. It is shot beautifully though, and really takes advantage of the landscape it inhabits. The crocodile himself is awesome. The cg is nearly perfect and you feel genuine menace from the animal and he produces all of the movies really intense scares. Also the supporting cast, when they are given the material, are really good. Unfortunately you aren't given enough on them to care. And at times the movie is intentionally very funny. The overall problem with the movie though is it isn't anything you haven't seen before. It is much better than Lake Placid or any of the sci-fi channel movies that seem to be made about this kind of thing all the time. But it feels like its striving to be "Jaws in the Outback" and its just not. Its an enjoyable genre film but i wouldn't pay my ten bucks for it. you can call me ANGELUS104
