Komodo (1999)

komodo

if you are anything like us you will love it
its sci fi so anything goes
well we loved it August 1, 2007

Enter the dragon . . .

Komodo is a pretty good creature flick that delivers the goods, providing fear, excitement, and a story holds together well enough, as these things go.

Jill Hennessy is Victoria Juno, a psychiatrist treating a teenage boy traumatized when his parents were killed mysteriously on a small island. She believes that returning the young man to the scene of the trauma may help with his recovery. Once back on the island, the komodo strike swiftly, and soon Victoria and a small group of companions are on the run from the deadly creatures.

The story's resolution may be a bit weak, but slick action sequences, cool special effects, and acceptable dialog and acting, make this a pretty entertaining ride. Though in somewhat unfamiliar territory, Hennessy's performance is solid, rarely missing a step.

Michael Lantieri who has extensive experience doing special effects on numerous A-List blockbusters like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and the Jurassic Park films, makes his directorial debut in this feature shot in the Gold Coast, Australia. His excellent commentary track is very frank, with lots of interesting and informative insights. The budgetary limitations and production tradeoffs are discussed extensively. Even with the economic constraints, Komodo is very nicely done and stands up to repeated viewings.
July 31, 2006

Komodo

I love this movie!

Thank you Amazon for having it!! March 26, 2006

"Their Drool Is A Culture Medium!"

This movie is full of cliches and full of itself, although the premise is no stupider than "Jurassic Park" with an aging hippie in a van dropping smelly eggs in the middle of nowhere. Of course several years later the eggs have hatched and this island with apparently one vacation home and a huge oil refinery on it are covered with these things. The dragons eat Kevin Zegers' parents and dog, and he is dutifully traumatized. Here is my first warning: get ready for about 45 minutes of Zegers staring blankly into space. A good looking psychologist (Jill Hennessy) and a female relative of Zegers (whose relationship to the boy is a bit unclear) take the kid back to the island under some ridiculous theory of mental therapy. Needless to say, the komodos are still there and chase everyone all over the place for a while, and get a couple of snacks along the way.

The oil company, which is evil of course, plots to get rid of the visitors. There are subplots involving a wrongly accused biologist, komodo saliva (the movie has excellent dragon drool effects), and evil Australians. Interestingly, despite the presence of two attractive leading characters, there is no romance in the film.

The plot is fairly implausible, but despite that and other shortcomings (like the extremely loud, annoying, and omnipresent musical score) there are good points about "Komodo." By far the best thing going for the movie are very good computer generated images of the dragons themselves. The dragons are actually a combination of hand puppets, robots, life size puppets, and computer generated images. A couple of the puppet shots look a bit hokey, but in general the lizards look excellent. My favorite computer generated lizard shot was the komodo trying to get into the back of the moving Volvo station wagon. Fans of creature films will like this movie for the effects if for nothing else. The acting isn't Oscar caliber, but it is consistent and generally well done (except the hyper over-the-top evil Australian oil executive) with no major complaints. I will complain about the script, though. There are moments of good dialogue in the film, but then there are passages that are so stiff and cliche ridden as to make even a B-movie connoisseur blush, like the "culture medium" quote of my title, a passage which got more convoluted (and full of improperly used scientific terms) as the scene progressed, although Billy Burke did a decent job throughout the film, even with lines this silly.

There are a few extras, such as a "Making of Komodo" short, which accounts for a one star deduction in my rating. The Director, Michael Lantieri (a special effects wizard) seems like a nice guy with a good grasp of filmmaking, but the Producers seem really self-important and pompous. First, Executive Producer Devesh Chetty makes the assertion that the film is not a creature feature, but is a sophisticated psychological thriller, and then Producer Tony Ludwig has the nerve to say "It's probably close to what Hitchcock had always liked to do." Uh, no. It is not at all what Hitchcock ever did or aspired to do. Get real.

There is another documentary on komodos and on the computer generation process (called "Maximum Fear") which was fairly interesting. Also included is a photo gallery, cast biographies, a game of some sort (which I did not look at), a trivia game, and a "Komodo Facts" section. In other words, there are a lot of extras for a B-movie DVD.

Although this movie is totally implausible (komodos don't live in South Carolina, and most biologists don't know how to fly a helicopter) and has a very uneven script the actors are generally good, and for fans of monster movies, it is decent, mindless entertainment. I would have given the film four stars without the self-important commentary from the Producers in the extras.
October 14, 2004

Good special affects. Bad movie.

I gotta give this movie credit. The special affects WERE pretty decent, especially for this line of film-making. The CG models of the komodos were well done, particularly the way the skin folded as the legs moved, and the way the scales shined against the light. Also, the puppets they used were pretty nifty, complete with saliva!

But still...this was a pretty bad movie. Hungry komodos kill the father, mother, and dog of a young boy because an oil company is depriving them of their natural food. Years later two psychiatrists bring him back to the island to help him recover from his post-traumatic stress disorder. Guess who hasn't moved since the boy left?

One thing that really got me about this movie was the stupid writing. Sometimes it was half-decent, but when it was bad, it was bad. The ferryman says, "They were a nice family. They had a dog." to which the shrink says, "What do you mean?" In a later scene the other shrink is being pulled down into a hole by a komodo, so her friend grabs her arm and PULLS (yeah, there's a smart idea - King Solomon where are you?) while saying, "Come on!" What do you mean "Come one"!?! She's wounded and being pulled on her leg by a komodo. She can't do any thing!

You know how she got wounded by the way? She heard a strange, animal-like noise outside the house...now if this happened to me, I would either A) shrug it off and go watch TV, or B) peek out the windows and make sure all the locks were secure. She instead goes OUTSIDE the house and says, "Who's there?" She deserved what came to her.

By the way, I love how they say the komodos were just "dropped off" on the island. Komodos live on the islands around Papa New Guinea. Who the heck would take a komodo and just take them around the world and dump them on a random island? "Ha! My friends in Maine will love this pet komodo I got for them! Awe darn, he got bigger along the way, guess I'll have to drop him off."

The film got some points from me for developing its characters the first thirty minutes and having good affects, but sadly it gets cliche in the last hour or so. The villain is, of course, a corporate villain who kills people off to save a few greens. Quite a remarkable accent for a villain too - he sounds like any moment he's gonna burst out with "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plains." If you like this sort of thing, you might be interested, but see it as a bad movie only. August 21, 2004

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