Komodo (1999)

Director: Michael Lantieri

Starring: Jill Hennessy, Billy Burke

Run Time: 90 mins

Certificate: 15

 

Plot Outline: A teenage boy return to the island where his parents were killed by giant komodo dragons. The experience messed him up pretty good and his psychiatrist thinks the best way to cure him is to take him back there. But the dragons are still lurking on the island and they still have an appetite for human flesh.

The Review: Python, Blood Surf, Octopus II and more have come and gone and now Komodo is the latest basement "monster" flick to grace my screens. Just as those pretty much sucked, this does to. The problems are too many to count but terrible acting is one thing and an awful script does nothing to help that. The problem with this is that we don't care for any of the characters. The supposed heroes are under-written and under-acted. Even the guy with a shady past and the slimy corporate boss are terrible (usually these characters get hammed up beyond belief). Some aren't around long enough to care when they get eaten - for instance the token black guy or the comic relief sidekick. He was in the film for 10 minutes at best so when he died, you can't connect with him emotionally as the other characters try to do (and as the music suggests you should do during the death moments). We also get a terrible plot about an oil company exploiting the island and trying to cover up the existence of these huge dragons - but we see no sign of oil anywhere. Other plot strands are so badly done, you can spot the holes a mile off. The only rarity with this film is that the dragons actually look good! In the recent wave of genre flicks, all of the monsters involved have looked pretty bad. But the dragons in here look ferocious. The CGI is well done and the use of real models is kept to a minimum. When the dragons are on screen, the film is a lot better but it takes ages to get going and by the time they do show up, you are beyond caring. The finale is extremely weak and disappointing too. But after I'd sat through the other hour of the film, I wasn't expecting much.

Final Verdict: If only as much effort had been put into the script and acting as it had in the special effects then Komodo would have been a lot better. But as it stands, you're better off watching the Discovery Channel and seeing some real life komodo dragons fighting each other. At least they're real and you might get a bit of blood.

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