Komodo

Rating:
Summary: An "okay" movie
Review: Hubby and I rented this movie a few weeks ago. It was your run-of-the mill "monster" movie. The graphics were good; however, I think it "demonized" Komodo dragons. (Anybody who has watched the Crocodile Hunter episode of Steve Irwin being on Komodo island with those lizards will know exactly what I mean.) They can become ferocious, yes, but not near as so as depicted in the movie. The movie is scary enough, but not a collector's item.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent sfx, most everything else is lousy.
Review: I don't know what it is about DTV creature features that attracts me so, but in the past few days, I've seen Blood Surf, Mosquito, Shark Attack 2, the Octopus movies, and now Komodo (Octopus is easily the best of the bunch). In case you couldn't tell from the title, this is a movie that features a bunch of komodo dragons slavering for some human flesh.

More specifically, it's set on a place called Emerald Island, where a teen named Patrick (Kevin Zegers) witnesses the death of his parents at the hands of komodo dragons. Flash forward sometime later, his psychiatrist, Victoria (Jill Hennessy), brings him back to the island, thinking it'll do his psyche some good. Unfortunately, all the "keep out" signs do little to dissuade them, and soon they're stuck on the island, teaming up with a small group of komodo hunters to find a way off.

Komodo has one asset that surprised me: the special effects are very good, and quite superb for a movie released straight-to-video. Unsurprisingly, I'd heard this was almost released in theaters, but it's not hard to see why it was pulled back. While the creature effects are first-rate, nothing else about this movie really is. Most of the action sequences lack tension and thrills, most of the komodo encounters fail to produce much in the way of fun and are rather sluggish. Director Michael Lantieri paces the movie way too slowly and he fails to make the komodos appear as a genuine menace.

While I applaud the effort Lantieri puts behind trying to push in some character development, nobody here makes an impression. It's a bland, boring group we couldn't care less about. And really, what was the point of making Zegers go "Lord of the Flies" on us? That's not to say the performances are awful, the acting is simply unexceptional. At least I can say I can't recall a moment I cringed during the movie.

Komodo ultimately also lacks a climax. The big, action-packed finale we keep expecting (or at least I did, especially considering I saw this after the very fun Octopus) is nowhere in sight. All we get is a komodo burning up from a flare, which is admittedly very cool to look at, but even Lantieri sort of screws it up by cutting away from the scene too quickly.

There's an obvious attempt here to mine the style and success of Jurassic Park and Anaconda. A lot of the sets closely resemble those in Park, but they're never really used to their advantage. Silly as Anaconda was, at least it used its settings to its maximum potential. Komodo just sort of slogs by on-screen, nothing worthy of note really happening. Movies like this are determined by whether or not they're fun for the right reasons, and while Komodo is surprisngly almost never awful, it's not fun, either.

Rating:
Summary: Very Believable
Review: I don't usually care for horror movies that center around animals attacking humans, alah "The Birds" or "Cujo" but this one worked out well. The offending animals are Komodo Dragons which actually exist on a small handfull of remote islands in Indonesia; and they aren't plotting their just hungry.
Some illegal importer of exotic pets tosses about a dozen Komodo Dragon eggs into an off road ditch on an isolated North Carolina Island, not realizing the scope of what he's doing. Approx 12-15 years later some of the dragons are full size and have established a regular colony, much to the distress of the island's tourists and lone business (an oil company.)
Actor Kevin Zegers turns in his usual great performance, and there were a few other noteworthy performances by some of the other cast members. The computer generated graphics are excellent and if you liked Jurassic Park you should love this movie.

Rating:
Summary: Fun Movie!
Review: I enjoyed Komodo, but these sort of movies appeal to me. It is a fun movie that is not meant to be taken too seriously. The special effects were top notch, and their were a few moments that made you want to jump out of your seat. The acting was adequate enough for a B-Movie.

Bottomline, Pop some popcorn, and sit back and watch this Fun little monster movie. If you enjoy movies such as Anaconda, Jurassic Park, Aliens, Deep Rising or Deep Blue Sea, you will probably enjoy this too.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Movie.
Review: I found this movie very entertaining, acting was espicially good were Patrick (kevin zegers) was talking to the psychiatrist in the bed. Altogether very good movie entertaining excellent acting coming from a movie that went straight to video, I thnk it was a very good movie.

Rating:
Summary: Good special affects. Bad movie.
Review: I gotta give this movie credit. The special affects WERE pretty decent, especially for this line of film-making. The CG models of the komodos were well done, particularly the way the skin folded as the legs moved, and the way the scales shined against the light. Also, the puppets they used were pretty nifty, complete with saliva!

But still...this was a pretty bad movie. Hungry komodos kill the father, mother, and dog of a young boy because an oil company is depriving them of their natural food. Years later two psychiatrists bring him back to the island to help him recover from his post-traumatic stress disorder. Guess who hasn't moved since the boy left?

One thing that really got me about this movie was the stupid writing. Sometimes it was half-decent, but when it was bad, it was bad. The ferryman says, "They were a nice family. They had a dog." to which the shrink says, "What do you mean?" In a later scene the other shrink is being pulled down into a hole by a komodo, so her friend grabs her arm and PULLS (yeah, there's a smart idea - King Solomon where are you?) while saying, "Come on!" What do you mean "Come one"!?! She's wounded and being pulled on her leg by a komodo. She can't do any thing!

You know how she got wounded by the way? She heard a strange, animal-like noise outside the house...now if this happened to me, I would either A) shrug it off and go watch TV, or B) peek out the windows and make sure all the locks were secure. She instead goes OUTSIDE the house and says, "Who's there?" She deserved what came to her.

By the way, I love how they say the komodos were just "dropped off" on the island. Komodos live on the islands around Papa New Guinea. Who the heck would take a komodo and just take them around the world and dump them on a random island? "Ha! My friends in Maine will love this pet komodo I got for them! Awe darn, he got bigger along the way, guess I'll have to drop him off."

The film got some points from me for developing its characters the first thirty minutes and having good affects, but sadly it gets cliche in the last hour or so. The villain is, of course, a corporate villain who kills people off to save a few greens. Quite a remarkable accent for a villain too - he sounds like any moment he's gonna burst out with "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains." If you like this sort of thing, you might be interested, but see it as a bad movie only.

Rating:
Summary: Great monster flick, but where's the finale?
Review: I have to admit that I'm a bit of a sucker for a good monster movie, and when I heard about KOMDODO (awesome creatures who have amazed me ever since I saw one eat a cow whole on a documentary programme!) I couldn't wait to see it.

Having enjoyed ANACONDA I was expecting more of the same from KOMODO and more or less that's what you get. For a low budget flick it's cast more than come up to scratch, with some nicely judgd performances all round, and the script is competent enough for the movie to flow without hardly any cringe worthy dialogue sequences to speak of. The young teenager who revisits the island where his parents were brutally attacked and killed the beasts of the story, particularly impresses, especially as there's a neat twist near the end where his character seems to undergo an unexpected but effective transformation.

The direction is also top notch, with a nicely judged sense of pacing, boasting some brilliantly executed scare moments (along with fingernail chewing scenes of creepy moments before the attacks), and the special effects guys and gals deserve a huge pat on the back for producing some quite awesome looking Komodos. What's more, unlike ANACONDA (where the big snake moved too unrealistically during some CGI scenes), the Komodo's actions do hold a close match to their behaviour in the wild. The blending of animatronics and CGI is also impressive, so much so that you begin to even forget which is which.

It's a shame then, that just when the movie seems to be building towards a classic monster finale, it falls short and wraps up far too abruptly. It really does feel that the company ran out of money and that the director had to come up with a ham fisted end scene because he had no other choice. The last scene after the Komodo mayhem is particularly poor, and it does harm the film's lasting impression upon you.

Still, there's some great work beforehand, and I wouldn't hesitate in recommending this to any monster movie fan, or to anyone who doesn't mind a bit of fantasy entertainment.

The DVD itself boasts an impressive anamorphic widscreen print and the use of sound will have you jumping out of your seat (there's a choice of Dolby Suround 2.0 or Dolby Digital 5.1). There's also an audio commentary from the director (but not from the actors as stated on some sites), trailers, a fascinating real life facts of the Komodo text file, and two featurette making ofs (although with my copy these could not always be accessed successfully).

Highly recommended then, even if the ending falls short.

Rating:
Summary: Awful!
Review: I knew this movie was going to be bad, but I watched it anyway. I regret it. First of all, the ending ..., but the main reason I hated it was because of the fact the lizards were in dangered species. They were starving and didn't deserve to get killed. I wish the lady and that guy that were the only survivers died, I hated them. These people just killed the lizards even when they didn't have to and it wasn't really the lizards fault they were starving.

Rating:
Summary: There's 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back. . .
Review: I read the reviews and I hoped for a good monster flick. What I saw was mishmash of poor editing, dialog, writing and acting. The entire film was one big "WHY?" Why were these people on the island and NEVER saw a coupla dozen 20 foot lizard running around after they had been there 20 years? Why was this kid noosing lizards in the middle of the night? Why did he ignore his parents yelling? Why did everybody NOT shoot the lizards when they were sitting in the middle of the road. Or just run em down. Why (and how) did the kid steal a lizards heart and run off with it? Why would a oil company who apparently hit water instead of oil even bother covering up anything and just leave? Why was it a mystery to the scientist what happened to his wife? Why would the police suspect him anyway? And finally why is there the dramatic walking thru the deserted village sequence? That was a white knuckler I can tell you. Why would a cop act like he knows whats going on keep going when people are hurt? The acting:The kid in the movie's entire acting porfolio seemed to be staring straight ahead and not caring. He kept the same expression on his face when he caugh a lizard, seeing his parents die screaming, lizard attacking or "in shock from what he saw". Like anyone could tell the difference. My friend Alex could show better emotional depth and he's a cocker spaniel. The rest of the characters were just there for filling. The shrink was a fine display of what not to do when you flunk drama class because of cheerleading. The Tosseled overprotective never explained whoever. The easy go lucky island hopping boat captain. The happy go luck Merc (I suppose that is what he was) and finally the Ruggedly handsome, Good with a gun, Tough under pressure, Lives by the seat of his pants...Biologist? Nothing is explained. Who, what or why in anyway reasonable. Everyone is dumber than a bag of hammers. Going in holes, high grass, middle of an open field. Almost always because of the dumb kid. (Who turns into jungle boy in less than 20 minutes for some idiot reason) You can tell who lives or dies because you can see the relief in the eyes of the Lizard food as they end thier session in this film. I can imagine the shooting was the worst 4 days of thier lives. The Lizards. I seen lizards. Gimme a Raptor if you want my to applaud good special effects. This film could been done Waaaay better with a coupla mutations and someone who can actually write. And excuse me but there is supposed to be a FINAL BATTLE SCENE in this kinda films. It would at least made this thing come sorta conclusion of win or lose. I say the real achievers in this film were the salesmen who actually got someone to front the money to cover this. I hope I never meet them in a dark Used Car Lot....

Rating:
Summary: Tolerable
Review: I rented this one with low expectations and I got exactly what I wanted: a goofy, essentially plotless action/thriller that was easy to make fun of. There are a lot of things that are just plain bad about this film: the acting, the direction, the characterization, the unoriginal storyline etcetera, etcetera. However, the few good things (some cool special effects; the overall corniness) actually make the film watchable. It's kinda fun to laugh at the stupid choices that the characters make, then laugh even harder when they get gnawed on by the impressive lizards. All in all, if you're in the mood for a light comedy, errr, I mean, thriller, then this movie is okay..