(** out of five)
I don't know how to rate this one. Was it terrible? Yes. Was it what I expected? Yes. Why did I see it? Because it sounded ridiculous. And to my enjoyment, it was. Even the Rotten Tomatoes Critics enjoyed it, scoring it at 87% so far.
The plot of Crawl is simple. A girl and her father are trapped under their house during a hurricane. While surviving a hurricane in Florida seems tough enough, a giant alligator is also trapped in the crawlspace with them. Their ultimate goal is to not only get out from under the house, but also to a safe place away from the hurricane. As the storm intensifies, so does the alligator's hunger for human flesh.
I did enjoy this film. It was campy, gory, and what anyone can expect from a summer movie. As an avid movie fan, I sometimes feel overwhelmed with the amount of emotion in films, the scattered political messages, and complicated plots. Summers are a great time for studios to release fun films that won't be nominated for awards, but that may be able to capture an audience. One of my favorite summer movies is The Shallows. It's simple and entertaining. The character is trapped on a rock with a shark swimming around, and she is trying to make it back to shore. The simple plot of Crawl could be compared to The Shallows.
The best aspect of Crawl is that it did not try to be anything other than what it was. The director, actors, and screenwriters worked together amazingly. The plot and dialogue worked together. The dialogue is corny, but the action is, too. It's fast-paced and short. There are about ten minutes of character introductions, then the movie takes off quickly. An example of a movie that I found to be not well-balanced was Aquaman. Awesome actions sequences. Great plot. Horrible dialogue. The dialogue was so horrible that it still makes me cringe. Crawl is a harmonious blend of everything. I laughed throughout the movie, even though there weren't any jokes in the dialogue. The small audience in my theater also laughed at the cheesy alligator attacks.
Crawl is rated R, but mostly for the violence and gore. There is no nudity or sex, and not much cursing. Sure, the alligator does get some good chomps in, but it doesn't haunt me like Jaws did. Due to Crawl's reportedly low-budget of only $13.5-15 million, the graphics aren't that great, and the gore is nothing to write home about. I imagine the largest expenses were the set and the actors. On it's Thursday night release, it raked in $1 million. According to Business Insider, this film is expected to do nicely at the box office.
Is this a film you can skip? Probably. Considering box office tickets are expensive these days, you may want to save your money on this one. But if money is not the concern, then why not see this one? It's a summer film that's fun and entertaining without being over-the-top, and it's running time is only 87 minutes. Let me know what you think.
