Hey there, all you folkerinos, Harry here. It looks like LAKE PLACID test screened a couple of nights ago, and I really wish I had more feed back on the film, cause I think this guy... kinda missed the point of the film. This is supposed to be a Horror/Comedy... not just a 'creature under the sea' film. I have heard they were aiming more for the TREMORS angle than JAWS. Also, he complains about the effects, but.. ya know the film isn't supposed to come out till June 25th (as of now) so... my bet is that the effects aren't done, so there's no point in criticizing them. So, take this review with a grain of salt and realize... there's still a long ways to go, and this is just the opinion of one person, who doesn't seem to like Steve Miner.... but... ya know I kinda liked Halloween H20... but hey... I suck. There are some spoilers here... so be careful.
Lake Placid
Last night, I had the pleasure of sitting down at the Winnetka 20 in the San Fernando Valley to witness the latest incarnation of the 'Creature Under the Sea' flick called Lake Placid. Now going in to the flick, I was thinking to myself, "Good cast, Bridget Fonda, Bill Pullman, Oliver Platt, and Brendan Glesson, the red headed guy from Braveheart." Heck, the film is even written by TV 'wonderkid' David E. Kelley, who has in my opinion written some of television's finest shows of the 1990s, namely The Practice, Picket Fences and Northern Exposure. Also, a little show called Ally McBeal but that ones overrated. But, when the credits started to role and I saw the name Directed by Steve Miner, I thought to myself, "Oh no, not the guy who did Friday, The 13th Parts 2 & 3." I knew I was in for a long night.
The flick opens with Glesson, an over weight Sheriff who's helping out some nameless Fish and Game warden who's tracking beavers for scientific purposes. Before you know it, the Fish and Game guy is ripped into two and Glesson stands there dumb-founded. What surprised me was that the scene was extremely gory, but then again Miner, who's a talent-less hack feels he needs to show you everything to get a rise out of the audience. So once the corpse is brought back to shore, they discover a tooth, hence we need to call in some out-of-towner city girl to come up to Maine and have a look for herself. So Bridget shows up, recently dumped by her boyfriend, Adam Arkin of Kelley's Chicago Hope, in a cameo.
Once she's in Maine she meets up with Pullman, another Fish and Game Warden who is investigating the death on the lake. Now they don't really know with what they're dealing with but the do know that the tooth pulled out of the body was of a crocodile origin. So they all scratch their collective heads at the same time saying, "How can a can a croc live in these cold waters?" From there, they investigate an old lady living on the lake played by "Golden Girl" herself Betty White. White, who looks about 100 years old, lives up to the typical old lady role. Meaning whenever she has the chance to cuss and not act like an old she lady, she does. Miner gets a lot of cheap laughs out her character.
The film then introduces Oliver Platt, playing this croc aficionado. You see, he has swum with crocodiles all over the world and they have never attacked him, even the deadliest. Platt plays this character as a boisterous thrill seeker, who says whatever is on his mind, whether he's commenting on Glesson's fat ass or Meredith Salenger's big tits. He becomes tiresome after awhile and you begin to wonder when the creature is going to eat him. Which to my dismay never happens.
In fact, you see the creature about 40 minutes into the film, giving away a lot of the suspense. The reason why the first Jaws worked so well was the fact that you did not see the Shark until 2/3 of the film was over. Once the secret is out that the creature is really a big crocodile and no special sea monster, I felt let down, down right disappointed. But I'm sure the marketing campaign will give it away because those Hollywood types are stupid anyway and don't know how to market films anymore.
Lake Placid is a tired film. I've seen this genre done a lot better, hell Jaws 3-D was better then this. At least that had a gimmick and a creature you could kind of believe in. Stan Winston has re-opened his floppy drive and rehashed the lame alligator effects from Eraser. Now I know this was a work print but when the crocodile attacked a bear it was a CGI tug-of-war, really fake looking and totally unbelievable. I've seen more realism on my Old School Commodore 64.
The acting is sub-par with zero chemistry between Fonda and Pullman. Now they have had good scenes in the past, look at Singles and you'll know what I'm talking about. But here, they don't even allow flirtation between the two, I think they have maybe three scenes together and they all fall flat. The main problem with the film is that it feels like a bloated TV show, the thing runs a scant 80 minutes long. It made me wonder what the hell they cut out because they only have a two-act movie. It has a beginning and an end with no sign of middle anywhere.
