Film Review: ''Komodo''

THE MONSTER mania hits Hollywood again. This time round, the subject of interest is the komodo dragon, the largest species of the lizard family, that infests the Indonesian forests.

The monsters in this Tony Ludwig-Alan Riche production are huge, hungry and computer generated. Though such films are not commercially successful abroad, they make a mark here. The horror and shock elements seem to go down well with the public.The plot of ``Komodo'' is not too complicated. Fifteen-year old Patrick Connally (Kevin Zegers), his parents and their cute little dog come to live on an island that also houses an oil rig. They live far away from the madding crowd, or so they think... till the parents and the dog disappear. Only Patrick knows what happened to them. But he is so traumatised by what he has witnessed that he refuses to speak.

Child psychologist Victoria (Jill Hennessy) enters.She believes the best way to help Patrick recover is take him back to the scene of `crime'. And when they reach there, sure enough the creepy, crawly `criminals' reveal themselves. Yes, the `villain' here is not just one komodo dragon but a whole family that lurks in the tall grass of the swamps.

In the midst of this, another character makes an appearance - Oates (Billy Burke), a scientist who has been employed by the oil company. His job - to destroy these killer dragons. The rest of the film is about ensuring that the audience is stiff scared while the eternal combat between Man and Nature continues.

The plot in films of this genre (``Anaconda'' and ``Lake Placid'' to name a few) follows a predictable path, be it in the way the plot points are structured, the camera work or the music, that is meant only to raise a few scares. Here, the technique of animatronics is the `hero'. ``Komodo'', directed by Michael Lanteiri (he won the Oscar for Special Effects in ``Jurassic Park''), too belongs to this category. But it does not offer much by way of acting or cinematography or for that matter any other department of filmmaking.

A movie that is meant only for the brave-hearted, it is being released in English and Tamil simultaneously.

SAVITHA PADMANABHAN

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Section  : Entertainment
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