In Lake Placid staying alive is easier than you'd think, with a 35 ft. crocodile prowling the waters. All you have to do is talk: none of the characters with significant dialogue are killed, though they sorely need to be. Viewers sometimes bemoan the conventions of the horror- movie--all the little faux pas you can make that get you dispatched: investigating noises, having sex, refusing to see the 'truth,' separating yourself from the group, etc. Just as distressing, though, is when there's no justice at all, when those genre-taboos are breached and the transgressor doesn't get his or her desserts. This is Lake Placid, set in King-country, where the ecosystem's been seriously thrown out of whack by a crocodile big enough to take a grizzly bear out in one bite. What's a grizzly doing in Maine? It doesn't matter. There's crocodiles too. The lake isn't even called Lake Placid. It all starts with the embittered sheriff (Brendan Gleeson) trading quips with a scuba-geared ecologist, setting the bickering tone for the rest of the movie. Yes this ecologist dies and dies ugly. Yes, a tooth is recovered from his corpse which effortlessly attracts another game warden-type (Bill Pullman), a museum curator running away from a broken relationship in the city (Bridget Fonda), and one Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt), croc specialist extrordinaire. The sheriff is already there, grumbling in place, acting as reluctant guide. Not a bad opening sequence, all in all, and the group dynamic Steve Miner (everything from Wonder Years to H20) kickstarts is distracting enough that when the crocodile finally begins snatching the supporting cast away, it initially catches us off guard. However, this group dynamic is also what pulls the movie down for the death roll: all the one-liners incessantly traded back and forth about the city, the country, the bugs, men women and love, etc, finally just get in the way, or, only succeed in establishing the movie firmly enough on land that the crocodile, for all it's technical splendor and appetite for expendable crewmen, is upstaged. In addition to these four core characters there's a little old lady who lives on the lake, makes cooing sounds to herself, and has a soft spot for the crocodile and a little dab of profanity for everyone else. Typically, she'd be the token comic foil for the movie, rounding it out, but in Lake Placid, slapstick is already part of camp life. Brendan Gleeson's sheriff falls into every crocodile trap Hector Cyr sets. Which isn't their only point of contention: while the sheriff wants to kill the beast, Cyr wants to swim with it. It's a mystical thing with him. Soon enough everyone has to take sides, switch sides, sit on the fence, all that. Which is to say we're not in the water. Which is to say we never get the sense that these characters are in any real danger. Who would deliver their lines if they were dead? On the plus side, there is an animatronic cow suspended from a helicopter, as well as a surprise at the big kill scene. Think Anaconda, but don't accidentally compare the two. In Anaconda people die, suggesting that the monster might actually win this time. Lake Placid doesn't even flirt with that. We root for the croc not because of the amount of meat it can grind per frame, but because, when pitted against the seeming invulnerability of a good-natured crew in the vital process of bonding, it's the underdog. (c) 1999 Stephen Graham Jones
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