Kind of a poor man's rip off of Jaws with liberal doses of Tremors and Jurassic Park thrown in just for the Hell of it, Dinocroc is a really dumb movie that makes really poor use of really dumb effects and really poor acting. Produced by Roger 'King Of The B's' Corman and directed by Kevin O'Neill (a quick check on his credits shows us most of his experience is in the world of digital effects), this really is bottom of the barrel stuff.

The plot is simple and wholly unoriginal – a genetic engineering company called Geraco inadvertently releases into a small backwoods town a mutant dinosaur-crocodile thing that looks suspiciously like a left over test monster from the abomination that was the American Godzilla. When the monster starts eating some of the locals, the Sherriff (Charles Napier, of Rambo and Supervixens) is called in on the scene and he, along with his daughter, an animal patrol worker named Diane (Jane Longenecker), get to stop the creature. To help them out, there's Jane's boyfriend, a sculpture artist named Tom Banning (Matt Borlenghi), and an Australian crocodile hunter (seriously) named Dick (Costas Mandylor). There are a couple of dumb subplots involving the romance between Tom and Jane, and a subplot about Tom's younger brother and his missing dog, but they really don't matter as they're never really resolved anyway. The important thing is that there's a big CGI dinocroc out to eat people and some people out to stop him. That's all you need to know.

Let's take a closer look at some of the more interesting aspects of the movie that is Dinocroc, shall we? It's only pertinent to being with a look at the male lead, Tom Banning, as played with absolutely no enthusiasm by Matt Borlenghi. Mr. Borlenghi's character spots some interesting tattoos. On his right upper arm he sports a black outline of what appears to be a gay pride logo, and on the other arm, he has the outline (and only the outline) of what one can only assume is the Harley-Davidson logo, just without the words 'Harley-Davidson' actually on it. He makes his living as a metal sculptor and has to watch over his twelve year old brother since his dad died, but that's okay, he never liked his dad anyway. He has some sort of past with Jane, but it's never really revealed what that past is. We can only assume, based on the fact that the get it on atop the living room couch in Tom's trailer-park home much to the delight of his peeping tom brother, that they used to be lovers and have found each other once again, thanks to the dinocroc.

And then there's Dick, the Australian crocodile hunter. Has there ever been a bigger cliché than this character? No. Probably not. He spends more time drinking beer than actually fighting crocodiles. We do see through some sort of flashback at the beginning of the movie that he has a past that somehow involves fighting them, but that's all we really know other than that he can related to Tom's pain later on in the film (saying anymore would spoil the only surprising moment in the film – this movie does have one amazing and completely unexpected death scene working in its favor). Dick's more interested in slipping his namesake into Jane, but she'll have none of that. She's in love with Tom, she can't resist his tattoos.

To complete the picture, we have Charles Napier. Anyone familiar with Napier's body of work knows that he does well with tough guy characters. His work with Russ Meyer is sinfully delicious and provided ample opportunity for Napier to show just how well a true bastard can be played on screen. He also managed to be decent in the Rambo movies. Napier is a decent actor, and you'd think that the filmmaker's would capitalize on that. Nope. No dice. He's got about fifteen minutes of screen time here and when he is on camera, he's not really doing much except directing the three other reluctant dinocroc hunters in what to do. One thing is for sure about Napier's character though – he doesn't like dogs.

What would Dinocroc be, though, without an actual dinocroc? Not much of a movie, that's what I say! Completely rendered in bad CGI that looks like it came out of a first generation Playstation game, the digital dinocroc is about as frightening as, well, a poorly rendered cartoon. The monster completely stands out against the backgrounds and doesn't look even remotely realistic.

With all that said and the film no pretty much thoroughly trashed, Dinocroc (the movie, as opposed to the monster) does have a redeeming quality – it's quite funny. Unintentional as it may be, the film is ripe with humor. When Tom says to Dick 'Let's go kill the f*cker' his complete lack of enthusiasm and determination makes it almost seem like the comedic value that one can derive from his deliver is on purpose. Random characters who show up only to be eaten, like the hunter who complains about spiders on his man-package while peeing in the swamp or the scientist sent by Geraco to stop the dinocroc before the public finds out, remind you of the 'guy in the red shirt' from the original Star Trek series who should accompany Kirk and Spock on their expeditions serving as nothing more than canon fodder. They are funny though, even if they're not supposed to be.

Video:

The 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is decent, but far from perfect. For such a recent film there's a bit more noticeable print damage present during playback than you might expect to see. Most of it is minor, appearing in the form of mild specks here and there, but it is definitely there. Sometimes the image looks a little soft as well, especially during the darker scenes where some of the fine detail gets lost. Overall though, the movie looks okay. Color reproduction isn't half bad and the black levels are strong. While there was some mild edge enhancement, there weren't any issues with compression artifacts. Things sure could have looked better, but they also could have looked a lot worse.