Alligator

THE STORY: Back when Dante's Inferno was hosted by Geoshi-I mean Geocities, someone wrote in my guestbook that the worst movie they ever saw was Alligator. Well, I have heard bad things about this film, but it was nowhere near as bad as you might think.

Ever hear the urban legend about alligators living in the sewers of big cities? They got there because someone bought a baby gator as a pet and when the animal got a little too big or a little too much of a pain in the ass the flushed it down the toilet. Well, that's what happens in the movie. A little girl named "Lisa" or something gets a baby gator while on vacation with her family. They return to the Big City (Chicago I think) and the father flushes it down the can while the girl is at school.

We go to about 15 to 20 years in the future from this incident. A pharmaceutical company, (I can't remember the name so I'll just refer to it as "Con-Huge Co."--That's what Tom Servo called a nameless company on MST3K once) has been dumping the dead bodies of stolen pets. You see, Con Huge Co. has been buying stolen dogs from Gutchel, a slimy pet store owner to experiment on. The dogs are eaten by the gator hiding in the sewer, and since the dead dogs are chock full of illegal chemicals, it makes the gator grow to ginormous size. (Ginormous...I made that word up) A cop, Madison is on the case because he's investigating body parts found in the sewer. When Madison and another cop, Kelley, go into the sewer the gator appears and eats Kelley.

At first no one believes Madison about the giant reptile. not even, Marisa Kendall, a lizard specialist. Marisa is actually Lisa, the little girl from the beginning of the movie. (I'm not even certain her name was Lisa in the beginning, but it damn sure wasn't Marisa.) Most people become believers when the gator eats a few more people and breaks through a sidewalk in the middle of the city.

Not satisfied with the way Madison is conducting the case, the mayor hires big game hunter, Colonel Brock. Brock is dogmeat. he's arrogant and a bit of an asshole when we meet him. He doesn't want any police help. so we know he's a gator-sandwich. Madison gets fired from the police force when he goes to Con Huge Co. to ask a few questions with Marisa. Slade, the evil CEO of Con Huge Co. (all CEO's are evil in the movies...didn't you know that?) is a friend of the mayor and doesn't want Madison to learn of the evil dognapping situation.

Hey, you can guess what comes next. The Gator makes it way to a party at Slade's mansion and instead of enjoying the tasty steaks on the grille, it helps itself to a few guests. the mayor and Slade are killed by the gator. well, they really die because they were too stupid to run. The gator is busy munching on a few nameless guests while Slade sits in his unmoving limousine (The driver just sits there even though there's a fucking giant gator eating people a few yards away) and the mayor bangs on the limo window instead of running for it. Marisa and Madison find the gator's layer in the sewer. Madison rigs up a bomb and goes into the sewer. when the gator returns after his feast, Madison activates the bomb, which is on a timer. of course that means he has to have a close call...he almost doesn't make it out before the explosion because a fat lady parked her car on the manhole cover. Marisa makes the fat lady move and the gator is blown into smithereens. (what the hell is a smithereen anyway...1/10th of a smither?) With the gator problem solved, Marisa and Madison walk off, wondering if they should set the police chief up on a date with her annoying mother. ha-ha. The end.

As I said, this movie wasn't all bad. Its certainly not up to the level of "Jaws" but it didn't totally suck. It was a bit too long, I think, but not a suck-fest. On a bad movie level its  okay. Things that are kind of cheesy in this film: The changing name of the leading lady...is she Lisa, Marisa or whatever?

The gator didn't look that big, and the FX weren't all that.

How the hell can the police not catch a slow moving giant alligator?

After checking the little girls name was Marianne or Marionne at the beginning...but it wasn't Marisa.

Best Lines: "Dammit! He's not hiding in the bushes!"-The police chief yells at some cops searching for the gator in a bush. Yeah, these guys are crackerjack investigators!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:

1.) Yep! That's real entertainment for children, watching a guy get mauled by an alligator! Why would anyone take a kid to see that?

2.) One of the newspaper headlines about the alligator was from the "Daily Bugle". I couldn't make out the by-line but I figured it must be by J. Jonah Jameson*. I'll bet page two had an editorial about that "webheaded weasel", Spider-Man! (only comic book readers will get that)

3.) This cops in this town must have gone to the Three Stooges School of Law Enforcement. The alligator is pretty slow. Slower than a human being, yet it gets away when it breaks through the sidewalk!

NUDITY AND SEX: None

HUH?: When Madison is fired from the police force he still plans on going after the alligator. um, why? this happens in movies...the detective on a case makes things a little too hot for some corrupt uppercrust guy and gets the boot. The detective then vows to find out the truth and expose the bad guys. In this movie it ain't working though....Madison even says he expected to get canned one day and now that its happened he feels relief. so why continue chasing the giant alligator? He doesn't need to prove he was right about the gator...the guy that got killed in the sewer with him wasn't a good buddy or anything. I don't see his motivation in doing this. I'd just say "Fuck you very much" to the police chief and go on my merry way. By the way, is it that easy to fire a police officer? Madison didn't do anything bad really. He just went around asking a few questions. Yeah, he was told to stay off of the alligator case, but he was investigating the pharmaceutical company because he believed they had been conducting some operation that made the gator get so big. An operation that involves missing pets...and he's right. The cops need a better union.

Col. Brock hires a few black guys as his guides in the urban jungle. He offers them ten bucks a day and these bozos act like that's a gold mine! Brock even refers to them as 'natives' and the head black guy as the local chieftain. Right. Try that in the inner city nowadays and you'll get a 9mm shoved up your ass so far you'll be licking the bullets. I think if you tried it in the time period this movie was made you'd at least get an ass-whooping, if not a knife in your gut.

THE TALLY: If you just have a taste for 'berserk animal movies' or you want to blow a little time Alligator is good for that. Don't expect too many thrills or chills and you'll be alright. If you need faster paced excitement, decent FX and cops that aren't completely useless you'd better search for something else. I give this film three devils. Ordinarily it would have gotten two, but it wasn't as crappy as I expected...which was a welcome suprise!

*J. Jonah Jameson is the publisher/owner of the Daily Bugle newspaper in the Spider-Man comics. Jameson hates Spider-Man and always writes articles about how Spidey is really a menace instead of a hero.