DVD REVIEW: ROBOCROC / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: ARTHUR SINCLAIR / SCREENPLAY: BERKELEY ANDERSON / STARRING: CORIN NEMEC, LISA MCALLISTER, STEPHEN HARTLEY, DEE WALLACE, KEITH DUFFY / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
SyFy’s bizarre obsession with ramped-up reptiles continues with this utterly ludicrous 2013 “original movie” cruelly unleashed on DVD upon an unsuspecting UK audience who really ought to know better by now. In RoboCroc, a prototype rocket packed with nanobots develops a fault shortly after take-off and crashlands, inevitably, in the woods outside a water park packed with curiously pallid, stodgy-looking teenagers. The nanobots swarm out of the damaged capsule and pile into the nearest living creature – a damned harmless curious crocodile. The nanobots set about transforming the croc’s body into metal so he becomes… a robocroc, if you will. Despite the fact that he’s turning into a machine (the nanobots are a dodgy scientific weapons experiment gone horribly – and laughably – wrong) Robo still has a taste for human flesh so he sets off to devour any human witless enough to get in his way as he rampages aimlessly about the place.
RoboCroc is trashy stuff even by SyFy standards. Set in America but painfully obviously filmed in the middle of nowhere in Bulgaria, it’s an effort characterized by achingly-poor CGI and crippled not only by its own inherent stupidity but the fact that the budget won’t stretch to much in the way of spectacle or incident. Most of the deaths occur off-screen or are depicted in extreme close-up and the woeful script lacks anything remotely approaching wit, pace or intelligence. Bland, unlikable characters run around looking worried until Stella the croc sheds the last of her scales and becomes a silly, appallingly-animated metal monstrosity which never manages to look even remotely realistic or connected to what we might loosely describe as the ‘live’ action. Ultimately, the only real interest the film can engender is from its remarkably eclectic cast, from Corin (Parker Lewis) Nemec, Dee (Elliott’s Mom from ET) Wallace, Britain’s Stephen Hartley (psycho cop Tom Chandler in The Bill) and – wtf? – Boyzone’s Keith Duffy, who gets second billing despite appearing in about two scenes fifteen minutes from the end credits but at least gets the opportunity to indulge in close combat with RoboCroc herself.
We never knowingly avoid an obvious joke here at STARBURST and we’re not about to start now. Let’s just say that, as you might have suspected, RoboCroc really is a complete and absolute crock.
Special Features: None
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