User Reviews

(Borderline spoilers) Where to begin? Well, for starters; I'm glad this wasn't directed by Roger Corman! Don't get me wrong. The man well deserves his nickname: "King of the B's." For instance, I absolutely loved the "Black Scorpion" series. But, after the way he b*****dized the sci-fi novel CARNOSAUR, I fear he would have similarly ruined this movie. That's why I'm glad Kevin O'Neill directed. He, at least, made the film not just another "Jurassic Park" rip-off. In fact, the CGI of the mutated croc resembled artists' depictions of an actual dinosaur species called "Suchomimus." So, there was some genuine paleontology presented, even if unintentionally!

And, I loved how the Judas dogs (a pun on the tiger-hunting term, "Judas goat") were rescued by the sheriff's daughter before the titular monster could reach them!! That, and the presence of Charles Napier* prevent this movie from being a complete mega-flop. As it is, I give this movie two-point-three stars, out of five.

*He's been one of my favorite "tough guy" actors, all the way back to BJ AND THE BEAR.*

I like me a bad movie now and then but this one was TOO BORING. Can't say too much really about this one, noteworthy things are the slow pace, mediocre acting and the crappy CG effects. I mean, if the beast would have been made with a rubber suit or something it could have worked better but by using prehistoric CGI they waste the opportunity to give the beast some creep-factor. The dumbest scene was the one where the little boy gets killed his severed CGI head gets catapulted into the camera. It's one of the first kills in the movie and a bad way to kick things off. Why does an innocent boy does have to get brutally murdered like that, with the flying head as a vulgar exclamation mark?

This is just a joke of a movie,they lost me already at the opening scene (Spoilerwarning) dangerous creature kills other creature in his cage,this is watched by a scientist that works there on a monitor and guess what she does,well lets go in to the cage to check the stuff out,omg how dumb do those writers think human beings are come on thats the same like jumping in a fish tank with a great white shark because it ate your goldfish...Pretty useless and even more dumber.And i will not even talk about the cast because they aren't worth the effort. why they didn't fired the guy that wrote that immediately is a mystery to me.....And this kinda dumbness continues the entire movie. Only good thing where the cgi that is better then average for these kinda low-budget movies.

If these kinda things don't bother you go see it,but be warned if your IQ is above 60 you will probably hate it.

Now I myself am a lover of the B movie genre but this piece of trash insults me to no end. First of all the movie is starring Lizzy McGuire's brother as the annoying little kid that goes looking for his lost 3 legged dog. Now please what kind of dumb ass mistakes a three-legged dog for a god damn mutated crocodile please I ask you? And heres another point for pondering, why do they show the Dinocroc on the back of the movie box being enormous and actually in the water? I believe if memory serves the thing spent about 2.6 minutes in the water and was just shy of 6 feet tall, that was a heart breaker. But redeeming qualities to this movie were that it was so bad that i almost died laughing because believe me the bad acting made me wish for death. But the fact remains that once again this thing is created by another military testing site to train super crocodiles for military combat or something like that from the source of all things evil E.V.I.L Corporation. And let's not forget the characters let's see we have jerk off #1 as the male lead and half way decent chick (who doesn't know how to act) as the female lead to that I say WOW! The only thing worse then the acting was the end of course the heroes spend about what seems like 2 hours talking and planning some long elaborate way of killing the dinocroc only to have it fail and kill it in an ordinary way that could have taken about 15 seconds to come up with. All in all this movie was beyond gay with its random opera music in the background and the fact that it was probably the gayest of all CGI monsters ever made along with the fact it of course was impervious to bullets and bombs (otherwise it wouldn't have been made for the military DUH!). By far the best scene was when Lizzy McGuire's brother runs into the shack and the dinocroc eats him causing his head to pop clean off with a popping noise i might add. I believe that you would be better off shooting yourself between the eyes then to watch Dinocroc. And as for the director I believe that we should get a bunch of people to hang him by a noose and all take turns kicking him in the crotch for wasting an hour and a half of our lives until he finally dies and then I can go on living.

The problem with DinoCroc is, it looks too much like a dinosaur for killer-crocodile-movie fans to get into it, and it looks too much like a crocodile for killer-dinosaur-movie fans to get into it. I'm not quite sure exactly what it is. At the beginning of the movie, the woman who's in charge of monitoring the baby DinoCroc in captivity walks past a sign that says "Sarcosuchus imperator," which DinoCroc is definitely not. Sarcosuchus was a prehistoric crocodile that looked like, well, a giant crocodile. This DinoCroc spends most of the movie walking on two legs like a dinosaur. ("I knew Sarcosuchus. Sarcosuchus was a friend of mine. DinoCroc, you're no Sarcosuchus.") It's disappointing that the aforementioned young lady is the first to get killed when DinoCroc escapes, because she's quite attractive. Her role as heroine is taken over by town Animal Control Officer Diane Harper, whom unfortunately isn't as cute. Her wannabe boyfriend Tom Banning is a real wuss and you're kind of rooting against him. His little brother Michael spends the whole movie looking for his lost, three-legged dog Lucky (the assumption is that Lucky was an early DinoCroc victim), and you're kind of rooting against the kid too. So when Michael gets tweaked because Big Brother is trying to get it on with Diane late one night, and decides to head out into the wilderness to continue the search for Lucky, you kind of want Michael to stumble upon a hungry DinoCroc. Sure enough... This movie also has the mad scientist from the amoral genetic research company, the "crocodile expert" who thinks he knows how to capture/kill it, the sheriff who doesn't want anyone else to tell him how to handle the situation and all the usual monster-gone-amok movie stereotypes. There's also a Beethoven/opera musical score that is played as background music whenever DinoCroc is stalking a potential victim. Weird, yet inexplicably it works very well in this movie. Overall, despite all the ranting, you could do a lot worse making a killer-dinosaur/crocodile movie than this. DinoCroc moves at a fast and lively pace, there are no boring stretches to speak of. The monster effects aren't "Jurassic Park" quality, but are better than most lower-budget monster movies. The ending falls a little into the "we need to find a REALLY creative way to kill it" mode, but it would be kind of boring and anti-climactic if they just dropped a nuclear bomb on it. And of course, the ending leaves the door slightly ajar for "DinoCroc 2." As far as movies you'll see on SciFi Channel (I don't believe this was a "SciFi Original" movie that they produced themselves, but a "SciFi Premier" where they buy the rights to an already made movie and make it the centerpiece of their Saturday night movie lineup), this is one of the better ones.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water...

Another computer generated mutant croc on the prowl for human lunchmeat, let loose by another one of those facilities conducting mad science. Gereco Biotech company is fooling around with growth hormone research, accidentally releasing a baby crocodile which is evolving at an accelerating rate.

B-movie cast add a deal of fun to this run of the mill "genetic mistake monster movie". Costas Mandylor evokes Mick Dundee, Aussie accent, hat, big ass knife, the works, as a croc specialist hired by Gereco executive Joanna Pacula(..wasted in the stereotypical role of corrupt administrative executive who denies any involvement with the gigantic beast her facility let free on innocent people). Charles Napier is the local sheriff whose town is in danger and Jane Longenecker is his hot daughter, who works at the animal shelter. Soap opera star Matthew Borlenghi is Longenecker's love interest, a local artist who welds sculptures(..his brother is a victim of the croc). Of course, this skill will come in mighty handy when our heroes set up a created trap for the croc, hoping to poison it with carbon monoxide.

The croc itself is never the least bit convincing as it rampages through a reserve looking for food, the special effects of a low grade variety. In regards to Roger Corman productions dealing with renegade dino-monsters, I stick with Carnosaur. The monster here is essentially a crocodile standing on it's hind legs, often upright as it pursues potential victims. I felt Mandylor and the filmmakers were spoofing Crocodile Dundee with his croc hunter, and this imitation might amuse where the monster itself fails. Borlenghi and Longenecker actually have pretty good chemistry together on screen. As expected, Pacula gets her commuppance in hilarious fashion(..gulp).

Dinocroc is set in a small US town where Gereco laboratories has it's headquarters, chief scientist Dr. Campbell (Bruce Weitz) has genetically engineered a live creature using DNA from a Dinosaur ancestor of the modern day Crocodile. After a laboratory accident the Dinocroc creature escapes into the nearby reserve, the top brass at Gereco hire world famous Australian big game hunter Dick Sydney (Costas Mandylor) to kill the beast & keep bad publicity down to a minimum. However animal control operative Diane Harper (Jane Longenecker) & her dad the local Sheriff (Charles Napier) discover that the vicious Dinocroc is loose & take over the remit to kill it before it eats anymore innocent people...

Directed by Kevin O'Niell I was pretty surprised to find out that Dinocroc wasn't an original Sy-Fy Channel film but was far less surprised to learn that cheap rip-off merchant Roger Corman was behind it, apparently had the working title Primevil & it's just about as bad as any of those awful Sy-Fy Channel creature features. The script for Dinocroc takes a little bit of Jurassic Park (1993) with it's DNA Dinosaur cloning aspect & adds a whole dollop of Lake Placid (1999) as a small community is terrorised by a giant Crocodile monster thing & it's up to a big game hunter & the local Sheriff amongst other's to try & stop it. The script is utterly predictable, throughly bland, truly forgettable & unforgivably uninspired as it's 85 minute duration plods along & feels like twice that. The story makes no great sense, there is no explanation given as to why this company Gereco are cloning prehistoric Dinosaur Crocodiles or why that stupid scientist decides to just open the door to it's cell & just sort of stand there totally unarmed, what did she think was going to happen? The Dinocroc wasn't going to invite her to sit down & have a cup of tea was it? Then there's the leading ladies affection for stray Dog's, I mean at the end her dad the Sheriff tries to use these stray Dog's to lure the Dinocroc into a trap yet Diane goes crazy & risk's not only her life but her dad's life, her boyfriend's life & everyone else there lives as well in order to sabotage the trap & save the Dog's. Are we really meant to believe that as a motivational factor? It's either the Dog's or possibly dozens of people. With a throughly predictable & sometimes embarrassing (the montage as Tom drowns his sorrows over his brother's death is really bad) script Dinocroc fails to deliver any sort of entertainment value, the attack scenes are dull & quite why the Sheriff didn't just call the army in I'll never know.

The CGI computer effects are average for this type of fare, while not the worst looking monster out there Dinocroc is hardly convincing. There's a little gore but not much, a boy has his head bitten off, a guy's severed legs are seen & there's a bit of blood splatter but nothing to excited about. The attack scenes are poor, there's no excitement or tension & no sense that Dinocroc is any great threat as it just sort walks a bit & roars. The makers never have it do anything else. The best part of Dinocroc is when Diane decides to stick up for Dick Sydney, without a hint of sarcasm or irony she says 'I like Dick'. That moment raised a smile from me & is probably the best part of the film.

Dinocroc has reasonable production values but nothing special, the acting isn't that good with seasoned actor Charles Napier slumming it here, Costas Mandylor turns up as the Australian hunter a couple of years before his star role in the Saw franchise started in Saw III (2006).

Dinocroc is terrible, it's as bad as it's Sy-Fy Channel counterparts & offers nothing new. Followed by the slightly better Supergator (2007) & the equally awful Dinocroc vs. Supergator (2010).

I'm surprised Dinocroc doesn't have a somewhat elevated reputation within the realm of low-budget sci-fi monster movies. True, it has its weaknesses, but compared to many other similar films it comes off pretty well. The script tells a familiar story of science gone wrong as a genetic experiment results in a ravenous prehistoric pseudo-crocodile which proceeds to terrorize the people of a small town. The monster--that would be the Dinocroc of the title--looks decent for a low-budget creation and is appropriately fearsome. The big difference between Dinocroc's script and that of many similar features is that a great deal of time is invested in the main characters, who generally come off as rather more realistic than the types who usually populate such films. They aren't all likable, but they are for the most part fairly true to life. Because of this, the on screen perils they face have a bit of an edge to them. This is particularly the the case when a young boy meets a grisly demise at the hands of the Dinocroc. The scene is set up well and carries an emotional impact that is a little rare for movies of this caliber. Though the ending does allow for a sequel, it doesn't ruin the preceding story and is a little ambiguous in nature, so even those viewers (like myself) who hate the usual "cheat" endings horror movies are known for shouldn't get their feathers ruffled. Obviously Dinocroc isn't a classic and it is very much a b-movie, it is nonetheless much better than some of its contemporaries and worth a watch by fans of the genre.