Reptilicus - Review
"Appetite for destruction"
This Danish Monster flick is a bizarre hybrid of the post-Godzilla giant dino trashes a city genre mixed with a Denmark tourist bureau travelouge. Shot concurrently in Danish and English, the American release features flat overdubs, a re-edit and a cheesy attempt to add some terrible special effects after removing scenes deemed too terrible by API, a lipstick on a pig scenario if there ever was one (a snake-like inarticulate puppet on strings kind of pig). Inept in every way, yet it is a cult favorite in Denmark and the States. It's hard not to love/hate the long drawn out science, journeyman direction, amateurish acting-not-in-native-language stoicism, the excess of stock footage, the obvious propaganda of 1960s Copenhagen, the z-grade puppet work, and the eye-popping yokel Peterson whose musical number was thankfully slashed from the American release. However there are plenty of reasons to tune in, the roundabout plot and general foreignness lend a humorist and surrealist tone as Denmark's entire military and populous seems to have been mobilized for the finale. That bridge scene definitely took some guts on everyone's part and we won't see it's like again in First World filmmaking.
Make sure you watch out for Reptilicus' green acid spit, it's clumsy implementation stings the eyes of both film character and film viewer.
2 AKVARIUMS out of 10 (AWFUL)
No comments:
Post a Comment