Plot
A game warden
moves his family into a house by the lake which was once the scene of some
horrific crocodile attacks. The locals assure him that the crocs are gone
but it isn't long before the warden's little boy finds a few baby crocs and
begins feeding them. They quickly grow into full-sized crocodiles and when
the meat that the little boy has been giving them isn't enough, they soon
move on to attacking people.
Review
What's more exciting than a low-rent sequel with
one killer crocodile like Lake Placid 2? The answer is another
low-rent sequel with many killer crocodiles in Lake Placid 3.
Following on from creature feature sequel lore than dictates if one monster
isn't enough, then feature multiple monsters, Lake Placid 3 suffers
from the same fate that befalls pretty much every Sci-Fi Channel original (I'm never calling it Sy Fy)
in that low rent CGI creatures, computerised gore, Eastern European
locations and cardboard cutout characters do not instantly equal success.
Having said that, it's marginally better than it's predecessor although that
was dire to the extreme. Like many of these straight-to-TV sequels, they're
pretty much that in name only. It wouldn't surprise me to find out if they
filmed this as something totally unrelated and slapped the Lake Placid tag
onto it to try and appeal to those who liked the original. Well guess what,
the only people who watch these sequels are people like me and I couldn't
care whether it's a Lake Placid film or some standalone crocodile flick - a
bad film is a bad film whatever the title.
Let's start with
the script. If there's a
crocodile on the loose, do you a) stay as near to the water as possible or
b) get as far away from it's habitat as soon as possible? The idiotic script
keeps having the characters hang around by the water or even run towards
it when they're in danger. If you're lining up to be a hot lunch, then fair
enough go there. Anyone with a shred of intelligence would run the opposite
way. The film is loaded with croc attacks
so you won't have to go too long without one but the
eventual kills are terrible. Gory, yes, but only if you like your kills and blood to
be unrealistic with cheap CGI. Again, script consistencies go out of the
window so one moment a croc is powerful enough to bite a man's head off but
the next minute it bites our lead actor in the arm and he gets a mere flesh
wound. The crocs themselves look really bad most of the time. What would
have stopped them from making a large crocodile head that they could used in
close-ups or for attack scenes? Lake Placid 3 also features daft
lapses in physics as these huge crocodiles can squeeze through narrow doors
without so much as a crack or scrape or pull people effortlessly out of car
windows with one bite. Then the next minute they're smashing up boats and
dragging cars into lakes for fun. Not to mention their constant refusals to
eat main characters when faced with an easy dinner. Films like this need to
have one set of rules and abide by them, not make everything up
scene-by-scene. The traditional Eastern European locations are back again
and it's funny that a film about crocodiles spends a lot of it's time having
characters traipse around the same wooded locations that almost every Sci-Fi
Channel original film has.
Colin
Ferguson has seemingly been cast as some likeable "everyman" we can
associate with but he's dull as dishwater. Like a black hole of charisma,
Ferguson is hardly terrible but he lacks any sort of screen presence
whatsoever. Michael Ironside simply cashes in
a cheque as the sheriff and can do these roles in his sleep. It's up to the
females to provide the spunk here with Yancy Butler stealing the show as the
one-liner spitting hunter. She chomps through the film better than the
crocodiles and provides us with a feisty character who is meant to be an
asshole but you can't help but get behind her. It's a pity her role is only
supporting as she's the best bit of the film. There's a bit of skin
too but the hottest chick in the film, Kacey Barnfield, had the better agent
and kept her top on although what a glorious white tank top it is! Blood and boobs are the necessities for low budget
drivel like this and when that even fails to get a look-in, it's time to
switch off. Unfortunately the sadist in me
wanted to see that annoying little kid suffer an ironic fate by being eaten
by the crocs he feeds but Lake Placid 3 is not the film to take risks. And
with an open-ending that promises further sequels, the risk will clearly be
minimal in Lake Placid 4.
Verdict
Lake Placid 3
is at least better than the previous film but that's saying little. It's
just your standard run-of-the-mill creature feature flick, no more, no less.
There's no ambition shown here. No taking chances with the material. You'll
have seen this film before and you'll see it many, many times more if the
Sci-Fi Channel has it's way.
