Komodo

It’s almost as if they had Jurassic Park leftovers.

From the special effects creators of that very movie, comes some downsized lizards with Down Under substituting for North Carolina — not entirely convincingly.

What was convincing: the effects.

What wasn’t convincing: one of the villain character’s East London accent.

Komodo is your average killer animal movie. And because Hollywood (or whatever you’d call this) fancies itself anti-corporatist there’s an evil corporation — an oil company, of course.

A mysterious crate arrives on a North Carolina by way of Australia, island. And it does not portend well, as it’s a crate, it’s mysterious and this is a horror film. It contains both reptile eggs and a heavy dose of foreshadowing.

A young kid Patrick is traumatized by when he witnesses his parents killed by an unseen creature (unseen, probably due to budget constraints). His grandmother enlists the help of the world’s youngest psychiatrist (Jill Hennessy) to try and get him to overcome this. Let’s just say for a movie about a killer komodo, this movie tends to drag on (see what we did there? Fancy).

She encourages Patrick to try and face his fears and return to the spot of the carnage (never a good idea).

Along the way there’s a kindly black ferry operator who’s half eaten and lots of running through reeds.

Not nearly enough gore, nor gallows humor to sustain it.

Is there anything these things won’t eat?”

“Anything faster than them I guess!

No that’s not very helpful at all.

Not to be confused with Curse of the Komodo, which features giant komodo dragons because of an army experiment gone wrong.

**1/2 (out of 5)