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IMDb Rogue Boards
November 3, 2006
Advance Screening of Rogue
By thegoodtea
SPOILERS!
Here is my review of McLean’s Rogue from the advance screening at NYC. I submitted this same review for Aint’ it Cool site.
I walked in not expecting much from Rogue after the damage that was done to me years ago by Crocodile Dundee. However, after viewing Rogue, I left feeling very entertained. Rogue definitely excelled my expectations.
I love genre-bending movies, and especially those that mix horror with a touch of realism. That puts me dead center of the target demographic of this film.
The pacing started out slow, but it there was suspense building to the pace. Furthermore, the film made many efforts to be realistic: In the beginning, the movie was filmed with a hand-held camera method to enhance the pseudo effect of realism. The characters were all “ordinary” people from all walks of life. There were no cheesy cliché of dumb blonde girl skinny-dipping in croc infested water, or crazy tourist on the loose creating mayhem of violence, silliness, or sadistic junk in Rogue.
As the pace progressed, it was clear that this film does not focus solely on horror, but character development as well. The audiences were introduced with these characters well enough to care about who live and dies in this film.
The cast performances were all good, especially Vartan. He certainly gave a pleasant and believable performance. I’m not familiar with Vartan but thought he did a fine job in this film. Vartan played the cool-headed leader in this film, where every movie of this type must have such a leader. He started out a skeptical, rude, funny, city slicker. However, as the tragedy set in, his rudeness and sarcastic humor were replaced with a much restrain persona. Vartan displayed a softer appeal compared to the macho-man usually seen in this type of movie. Don't expect any extreme heart-pulling heroism, rousing or erratic feats from Vartan when the disaster kicks in. Instead, keep in mind that he played a writer not an action hero or super cop in this film. The fact that he didn’t suddenly turn into a professional croc-hunter was a huge relieve for me.
Rahda Mitchell was also great as usual, and it was nice to see her after Silent Hills.
Cut to the croc -- when the croc was finally revealed, it was a very impressive, realistic, terrifying croc created half by CGI and animatronics. It was apparent that McLean’s biggest star was the croc. Obviously, there were scenes of horrifying croc attacks but not extremely gory.
Overall, the concept of a croc movie seems like a cliché, but if you bear with the unavoidable facets of a movie dealing with type of plot, this film is good entertainment. Note: This movie is still being edited, and they are working on it. We can expect to see improvement in the final version.
J.T
© Internet Movie Database Inc. 2006
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