Rating: 
Summary: Jaws with neurotics!
Review: That is how star Bill Pullman describes this movie, but I will tell you it is SO FUNNY! This is a real good time party movie: great humour, a few scares all with an ecological bent. The dialogue is crisp and brings all the characters to life. The action is cool and believeable but never takes over.This is the story of a 30 foot croc that attracts the attention of the law, a fish guy, a museum girl and a very rich eccentric after it rips a beaver tagger in half. Now this disparate bunch can give lessons in sarcasm and as you would expect they just do not get on. But how does a croc get to Maine? Well that is one question you have to figure out for yourself (although there is a clue at the end). The film borrows (ever so slightly) from Jaws and has some fantastic scenes (when the croc grabs the bear for example). Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt and Brendan Gleeson play their parts straight to hilarious effect. Stan Winston's effects are so much better than many monster movies but the prize has to go to Betty White's Mrs Bickerman. She really steals the show. You want to laugh out loud - well you have got to see this!
Rating:
Summary: Comic horror which undeservedly bombed in theaters
Review: Written by David E. Kelley, the mastermind behind television's Ally McBeal and The Practice (both of which won Emmys in the "best of" categories last year), _Lake Placid_ is a comic horror film about the search for a giant crocodile, inexplicably living in a landlocked lake in upstate New York. When a diver is eaten alive in the opening moments, by some unknown creature, the local game warden (Pullman) teams up with a paleontologist (Fonda) from New York to find the beast. Add to this mix an eccentric millionaire philanthropist with a penchant for swimming with "crocs" (Platt), and the local sheriff (Brendan Gleeson), who thinks the man is nuts, and you've got the recipe for one of the more underrated of last summer's films. This is a horror film and it can, at times, get quite messy (see the opening attack sequence, for example). The special effects work is about what you'd expect in such a film, although with the advent of computer graphics, it's a lot easier to bring a realistic giant crocodile to life. Surprisingly, though, there are few deaths in the film. The emphasis is more on suspenseful moments of the Jaws variety, in which we wonder whether unlucky swimmers are about to become lunch. And, there are even a couple of gross, but funny moments in the film, as when an eccentric old lady (played by Betty White) offers random farm animals as sacrifices to the croc. But the real emphasis in the film is on the humor and there are some great conversations and arguments among the film's characters, particularly Platt's whacko croc-swimmer and Brendan Gleeson's sheriff (in one of the more unusual bits of casting, as the Irish Gleeson is forced to adopt an American accent, which tends to slip in some of the more heated moments). And White's character is also played for laughs (you'll be surprised at some of the inventive curses she comes up with). The film wasn't particularly well-received when first released last summer, but luckily, with its release on video, this can be remedied. This is not a film for everyone's tastes, but if, like me, you occasionally hunger for a "giant-animal-runs-amuck" film, _Lake Placid_ more than fills the bill.
Rating: 
Summary: Hmm...
Review: The story is about a large Asian crocodile that travels across the Atlantic Ocean, and takes up residence in a lake in Maine. An old lady (wonderfully played by Betty White) is feeding the crocodile, as it had become kind of a pet to her and her late husband. Unfortunately, the crocodile isn't satisfied with just eating the cattle that are provided to it. It also doesn't mind snacking on a human or two. And let's face it, if this movie were about an old lady feeding a crocodile, it wouldn't be here, now would it? After a tooth is uncovered, it is sent to a museum to be analyzed. The museum director sends one of his colleagues (Fonda) to the lake to find out what is going on. There she meets the sheriff (Gleeson), the local game warden (Pullman), and arriving shortly thereafter, an eccentric man (Platt) who believes that crocodiles are godly, and enjoys swimming with them. While there are some genuine scary moments in the movie, it tries too hard to be funny as well. If the filmmakers had tried to stick to just one style of movie, either humorous or scary, they would have fared a lot better. Instead of a very good film, what they ended up with is a movie that is trying too hard to be both scary and funny at the same time. While there are a few surprises in this movie (one that took me *completely* off guard), the ending is all too predictable. Some movies can get away with combining the horror aspects and the comedy aspects, like the above mentioned TREMORS. Unfortunately for LAKE PLACID, it couldn't quite pull it off.
Rating:
Summary: You will lose head over this one!
Review: What more do you want from a film? Two good-looking leads, two fat people who have a witty slanging match all the way through the film and then the creme de la creme, a crazy old-woman who treats the crocodile as a pet! What is really good about this film also is the fact that the special effects actually look real. You'll see what I mean when the crocodile eats the bear. Totally life-like! An example of how crazy this old woman is! The crocodile eat her husband, she aint bothered. It wasn't the croc's fault she says. He got too close! You can't beat crazy old people, especially when they're portrayed as they are in this movie. If you want this all summarized, here you go. This movie is excellent, everything you want from a spoof horror movie that does actually deliver some tense, terrifying death-defying moments that have you clinging onto your seat for dear-life. Then you find yourself checking to see if you haven't just soiled your pants when the croc does a surprise attack. Bridget Fonda's gorgeous, Bill Pullman plays the same role he plays in every other movie and Oliver Platt is just fat. An eccentric fat person at that so there's much to laugh at! Buy this film as it's aided many a drunken party at my house and also, a lot of non-drunken parties too........
Rating: 
Summary: Lake Placid
Review: "Lake Placid" is pure fun and excitement, filled not only with the gruesomely entertaining animal attacks from the "Jaws" megahits (Which if you haven't seen you must not be born yet) but with humor from the local sherriff (Brendan Gleeson), the stubborn anti-Maine paleontogist Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda), croc-crazy mythology professor Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt), the mysterious old lady on shore (Betty White), and pretty much the whole cast. Other than talk not appropriate for children and believable gore, "Lake Placid" is a movie you'll want to see. The film starts when a game warden scuba dives in Black Lake, Maine to tag beavers, when he is fatally and bloodily struck and when he reaches the surface there's nothing left but the upper half of his body. The only clue to what was responsible for the man's death is a dino-like tooth found inside the man's body. Paleontologist Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda) from New York, after breaking up with her boss, travels to the backwoods of Maine to the lake, called by some as "Lake Placid", to check out the tooth. Then an insane crocodile expert, mythology professor Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt) arrives, in hopes of finding what he thinks is responsible for the man's death: an Asian Pacific Crocodile. They soon discover a thirty-foot prehistoric croc in the lake (it bites off a deputy's head), being fed by a crazy elderly woman (Betty White) on the beach. Although the local game warden, Jack Wells (Bill Pullman) and the community sherriff want the beast destroyed, Cyr has other plans... A great movie, just as funny and comedy-like as it is entertaingly scary. Worth your eye.
Rating:
Summary: Betty White Rocks!
Review: A Fish and Game worker is doing a survey of beavers in a placid lake with the local sherrif when he suddenly becomes half the man he was and dies. Local law enforcement, Fish and Game, and a New York museum worker set out to discover what happened. They are soon joined by an eccentric millionaire who loves crocodiles. Is there a crocodile in the lake? At first few believe that such a thing could be until hard evidence shows up. The Crocodile is not an ordinary one, it is thirty feet in length. The camp is quickly split between those who want to kill it and those who want to save it. To learn it's fate you will have to watch the film. This is a very well-done piece of work. The characters are interesting and there is just enough sarcastic humor to really lighten the mood. Betty White plays a foul-mouthed local resident and her delivery of her "I'm rooting for the crocodile" line is an instant classic. This is a fun film and far from typical. It is not just a giant-lizard-eating-people film. Check it out.
Rating:
Summary: Not horror, not in the least... but funny...
Review: Pretty fun. Light hearted as a movie where a huge reptile bites people in half can get I suppose. Um, the plot isn't really a factor here, just the execution. The movie doesn't take itself seriously, and it moves at a very brisk pace. The performances are fun and care free, Oliver Platt's hilarious, so is everyone else with much of a speaking role (Betty White steals the show). Pure popcorn entertainment, and pretty delightful... The only flaw I suppose is that it's so lighthearted it's somewhat forgettable. I didn't even remember it until I saw the video cover in a rental store and was like "oh yeah, that was fun..." It's not JAWS, and it doesn't want to be, it just wants to entertain, and who am I to stop it from doing so? Overall, a solid, exciting experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Watch It on TV
Review: Watch this at least once, just to hear Betty white cursing like an old salt. Then watch Hard Rain to see her as a crazy old broad out to kill looters. Then burn both films.
Rating:
Summary: You know the drill...
Review: You know the drill: "guilty pleasure!", "so bad it's good!", etc. This movie is basically a pre-fabricated B-movie, one that is even panned by its own packaging (e.g. "This year's 'Anaconda'!"). David E. Kelly wrote this, which is why it will feel to some like an extended episode of ALLY McBEAL gone camping. The animatronics are definitely on par, and the "witty" banter gets wearying for the same reasons that led to the insubstantial ALLY's cancellation. People always see through glibness eventually. So the moderately amusing dialogue passes the time, since they make the creature as absent as they can possibly get away with, but it's pretty lazy altogether. The music is really funny. They try and gin up this really sinister stuff when the helicopter does a fly-by of this blandly idyllic Maine town. It's very funny. Bill Pullman is a genius, I've decided. His understated style carries this movie. Bridget Fonda over-hams the "NY Girl Goes Camping" routine, and keeps falling in the water. Don't fall in the water! The creature lives in the water! Platt and Gleeson have some sort of recurring personality conflict throughout most of the movie, the basis for slapstick yucks, which are really just some sort of surpressed homoerotic display behavior between two adult men. You'll see what I mean. Betty White plays the role of her lifetime...which means she has a couple of funny lines. This is not the worst movie. I wish they had gone all out and tried for that distinction. Instead they ended up making a moderately bad movie instead of going for gold; inexcusable mediocrity, that. Thus, the charm of ANACONDA just isn't there.
Rating: 
Summary: Turn the Croc into shoes already....
Review: Both the actors and the fake looking reptile become tierdsome about ten minutes into the film, you want the monster dead, but first get rid of the cast, because they stink. David E. Kelly does bad TV shows, and he's no better at films.
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