Brutal River is the latest in a long line of depressingly lame and largely indistinguishable giant croc-i-gator movies. I found it better than the Sci-Fi Channel sort, if only because a) it actually looks like a movie rather than a video, b) was made in Thailand and thus features pretty scenery, and c) the characters, while entirely shallow and generic, at least entirely naturalistic, and actually seem like people rather than the exact same set of cookie-cutter and obviously bogus ‘characters’ that inhabit, again, every single Sci-Fi Channel movie.
It was a passable time killer at best, and although I saw it less than a week ago and it’s already failing from memory. In fact, I’m sure I’ve seen a nearly identical Asian killer croc / alligator movie in the last six months, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it is. That’s probably where I’ll be with this one too, soon.
As you’d expect, the huge alligator is largely CGI, and is generally OK (grading on a curve, of course), but naturally moves way too quickly. Just because a CGI beastie can move as fast as you want doesn’t mean it should move super-fast. It seems to lack mass that way and fails to fool the eye, even when you don’t consciously know what the problem is. Also, I don’t know, CGI monsters just lack personality. I’m sure I’m not speaking for everyone here, but I almost never get the kick from a CGI beast that I did from the large prop gators / crocs in ’80s films like The Big Alligator River or the two Italian Killer Crocodile movies.
The storyline is so basic that calling it a ‘storyline’ exaggerates the situation. A rustic riverside fishing community is threatened when a really big alligator shows up and starts eating people. The rest of the film involves efforts to kill the ‘gator, including calling in priests and the military. The film features lots of attacks, but nothing very memorable, and generally featuring a TV movie level of violence. So if you’re looking for gore, this ain’t going to do it.
These things continue to come out. Scott Foy has a recent review for another Thai one called Croc, and Sony has something called Black Water coming to DVD in February. Ironically, the great white hope of the killer croc fan, the Australian movie Rogue, continues to be denied a release by the muttonheads at The Weinstein Company.
Again, it’s amazing how many of these things there are (Alligator, Alligator 2: The Mutation, The Big Alligator River, Black Water, Blood Surf, Brutal River, Croc, Crocodile, the other Crocodile, Crocodile 2: Death Swamp, Killer Crocodile, Killer Crocodile 2, Lake Placid, Lake Placid 2, Primeval, etc.) and that almost all of them, when not outright awful, are just tiresomely lame. Please, somebody, get this right.
