Collaborative Blogging, Film Reviews

Rogue, or: Supercroc vs. Human Nature

It’s a free for all month in Blog Collab Land, which of course means at least one B monster movie.  This one is about a supercroc terrorizing tourists in Australia, and further evidence that going on a cruise is the actual worst idea.

The Film:


The Uncondensed Version:

Our lead, Pete, rolls into a small Australian town wearing aviators.  Pete, that is.  Not the small Australian town.

A man missing his aviator sunglasses looks over towards the camera.
I was too slow to get a screencap of any of the scenes with the aviators, so you’ll have to use your imagination.

As it turns out, he is a journalist covering a story about something or other.  I forget because it’s never spoken of again.

Boat cruises in Australia?  Because that’s his first stop.  On the cruise, we meet a host of different characters whose names you will likely forget immediately:  Single Guy with a ‘70s ‘Stache, Woman with Cancer, Family of Woman with Cancer, Camera Guy, and (slightly later) Douchebros in a Speedboat.  The only name I remember is Kate, the blonde captain of the boat who is obv going to be a love interest.

A woman in a pink baseball cap looks scornfully at a character off-screen.
She’s that delicate balance of tomboy and feminine, as evidenced by pink baseball cap.

The tour is relatively uneventful at first, though of course the extended description of crocodile behavior will definitely be relevant.  Things start to go downhill when a member of the group sees a distress flare, and Capt. Kate must check it out.  (Even though a significant number of the tourists are pissed about possibly missing a bus.  Humans are the worst.)

This, of course, leads to the first encounter with the supercroc/disappointingly no one actually gives it a cheesy name a la Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark.  Though no one gets chomped by the croc, the boat is destroyed, and everyone is stranded on a very small island.  To make matters worse, the tide will rise in a few hours, submerging the island completely.

The whole situation very quickly becomes a bit of an And Then There Were None sort of suspense story, with everyone turning on each other and blaming the others for their predicament.  Or maybe just a Real Housewives episode (any and all of them).

The douchebros show up again to be douchebros and, I must say I got quite a lot of joy when one of them gets chomped (spoiler, but you knew it was going to happen).  At this point, I realized the other douchebro is Sam Worthington, who actually somewhat makes up for acting like a dickhead by proposing a risky plan to get across the river.  He will swim across with a rope that will be attached on both sides of the river to a tall tree so everyone else can sort of shimmy across the river without swimming/alerting the supercroc.

A group of people attempts to shimmy across a river using a rope.
And then there were…4?  5?  It’s hard to keep track of characters you don’t care about.

This would all go fabulously well but remember how humans are the worst?  The first woman to try the crossing has a bit of a meltdown and just stops midway over the water.  To drive home the point of how stupid and frustratingly short-sighted humans are, the husband of Woman with Cancer (I know, I know, but that is honestly her only defining characteristic in this film) tries to cross with his daughter (a really young Mia Wasikowska!).  This is just the worst idea.  The worst, and it should surprise no one that all 3 fall in, yet only 2 make it back to the island.

A large CGI crocodile stalks a human in a cave.

It’s kind of lame that Kate has a bit of a freak out at this point even though I’m positive I would do the same thing.  Just irritating that all of the, ahem, “brilliant” plans are devised by men in this film.  It’s Pete’s turn to come up with a plan, which involves creating a diversion and temporary trap for the supercroc while everyone swims to shore.

In the aftermath of the plan, Pete is separated from the rest of the group and trapped in a cave with the supercroc.  Does this mean a big showdown with the supercroc???  Yes, it does.

The Rating:

3.5/5 Pink Panther Heads

There are some gorgeous landscape shots because this is set in Australia, which is a surprise bonus.

However, the characters are so, so bland, which makes it difficult to care when they start getting chomped by the supercroc.

The last half hour of this focuses on Pete alone, and sets up some incredibly suspenseful last few scenes.  But the rest of the characters just drop off the radar completely, making for some disjointed storytelling and almost creating a completely separate film for the final act.  It’s dissatisfying for so many of the characters to just vanish (even though I didn’t actually care about them as human beings).

And ok, I don’t want to get too spoiler-y, but riddle me this.  If you were a supercroc, would you kill and/or severely maim your victims and then drag them back to your lair, or would you JUST FUCKING EAT THEM?  Coincidentally, this is also a question you can ask yourself to determine if you are a serial killer.

Did Christa retain her humanity after this film or is she embracing her inner supercroc?  Read her review here to find out!