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familiar story -- as an example, as one point, Oliver Platt holds up a severed toe and asks Gleeson, "Is this the man?" to which the sheriff replies, "He seemed much taller." -- but the humor is superficial, at best, and does nothing to advance the plot. Director Steve Miner (Halloween H20, several episodes of Dawson's Creek, Chicago Hope and The Practice) manages to keep things lively -- scenes between attacks are usually short and either filled with character tension or humor, usually the sheriff walking into one of the rich guy's traps or Betty White cheerfully chatting about whacking her late husband with a frying pan.
Characters are introduced with the briefest of explanations. Within the first five minutes, we meet the sheriff and another game warden, out to tag beavers, who is dead by the end of the scene. It's hard for the audience to connect to these characters and even harder to believe they're connecting with each other, as four of them do.
The croc effects are (mostly) good, but dangling a cow from a helicopter as bait is distasteful. (Didn't White, an inveterate animal lover, object to this scene?) Moviegoers are already comparing Lake Placid to Anaconda, and as silly as the latter is, Placid suffers by comparison.
RATING: 1/2 star
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Director: Tim Hill Screenplay: Jerry Juhl and Joseph Mazzarino and Ken Kaufman Starring: Jeffrey Tambor, Andie MacDowell, David Arquette, Rob Schneider, Josh Charles, F. Murray Abraham, Pat Hingle, Hulk Hogan, Kathy Griffin, Ray Liotta, and the voices of Frank Oz, Dave Goelz, Steve Whitmire, Bill Barreta, Jerry Nelson, and Brian Henson Running Time: 82 minutes Studio: Columbia MPAA Rating: PG |
What you've always suspected is true. Gonzo the Great really is a little blue... uh, whatever... from outer space. His alien brethren and sistren are trying to contact him with the message "R U there" carved into the Great Pyramids, rearranged in Stonehenge, and through the letters of his breakfast cereal. The messages catch the attention of a super-secret government agency and its head, alien-hunting nutcase K. Edgar Singer (Jeffrey Tambor).
With the focus trained on Gonzo -- and on Miss Piggy, hosting a UFO program
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