National Geographic - SuperCroc

Rating:
Summary: Jurassic Park meets the Croc Hunter
Review: Although the focus of this program is Sarcosuchus, the fossil "SuperCroc" of what is now the Sahara, it includes a great deal of information on contemporary crocodylians through "Croc-Hunteresque" segments in all sorts of interesting places. Particularly striking are a night croc "hunt" in Costa Rica, and Adam Britton's unique method of inserting and removing sensors into and out of a Saltwater Croc's stomach (by hand - you won't believe it 'til you see it).

Recovering the animal's fossilized skull is covered at some length and in such a way as to convey the tension inherent in recovering such a heavy, cumbersome, delicate, and valuable chunk of rock without destroying it or hurting yourself. Paleontologist wannabes, take notes.

The now-familiar method of bringing extinct animals to life through computer animation is used, but it would have been nice if there had been somewhat more footage of this sort and it could have been more lifelike; say, something more like that in "Walking With Dinosaurs." Also, other giant crocodilians such as Deinosuchus and Purussaurus were never discussed. This is understandable, since it was about Sarcosuchus after all, but I, at least, would have welcomed some comparison.

Quibbles aside, it was well done and my kids and I still think it's a blast, even after watching it a half-dozen or so times. Now, if the traveling display would just come to Omaha. . . .

Rating:
Summary: Too close to Spoof for comfort
Review: The first few minutes give the impression of this documentary being a spoof. If this were not a National Geographic documentary, I'd still believe it was.
Details about the Supercroc are amazing and its ability to eat dinosaurs fully believable. Sadly, there were too few details about the 40-foot long crocodile; instead, the viwer is given a documentary that seems to spend about 90% of its time in praise of the amazing abilities of the people involved in the fact-finding required to link the supercroc to today's remaining species of crocodile. All could have been covered by a few lines of commentary explaining that there was detailed research on the likely similarities of size (and predetory instincts) of present-day breeds of crocodile and the supercroc: however, that was not the case; so be it! But, to collect the required comparative data, the crocodile-hunting scenes seemed so lacking in safety for the people involved that I remain somewhat discomforted about why National Geographic endorsed such amateur displays (including one crocodile hunter stepping on the nose of a crocodile and looking very fortunate indeed not to have become a crocodile meal!).
Praise is certainly due to the amazing sculpting of what the supercroc would have looked like in comparison to mere human beings but, overall, too much time was spent on looking at the self-glorification of the presenters rather than the awesome glory of the supercroc.