Review of Komodo

Introduction

Komodo. KOMODO. Say it slowly and in a deep trailer-type voice.

KO-MO-DO.

Scary, eh? No? Well folks, that’s as scary as it gets.

Despite being billed as “The Living Terror”, it is anything but. However, you can’t really expect blood, guts or anything truly disturbing from a film that is rated 12.

Hold on a second. 12? Surely, it says 15 on the box.

Well, yes it does but if you look carefully at the back, you’ll see that Komodo is rated 12. However, the DVD features an exclusive preview (trailer) for Ginger Snaps which is rated 15 and which overrides the 12 rating for Komodo. Now, I can’t help but think that this is a deliberate ploy to try and increase sales. Simplistically, this is a monster movie – a creature feature – and the target audience won’t really want to buy a weak-assed 12 certificate. 15 maybe.

Anyway, the plot, such as it is, is fairly standard. Creatures (the eponymous Komodo dragons) are loose on a island. Some poor unfortunates stumble onto the island and some get munched and some don’t.

And, that is it. Sure, the writer tries to dress this up with some psychological trimmings such as young Patrick being traumatized by his parents’ munching and not being able to come to terms with what happened. There is also, the ecological trimming where an evil oil company is trying to cover up the munchings and its attempt to slaughter the Komodos (endangered species).

It’s still just a cheesy B movie.

Video

Video is presented in a fairly decent 1.85:1 Anamorphic transfer. The image is crisp and clean and there is only one cause for complaint and that is the contrast. Much of the film is set in darkness and sometimes, it is just too darned dark and you can’t really see what is going on. Perhaps this is a deliberate attempt to heighten the tension but it is just annoying.

However, despite having a decent transfer, the visuals themselves are pretty hackneyed. From the opening shot of ocean racing under a helicopter to the swamp attack, you’ve seen it all before in better films. No flair or invention is on display.

Audio

Despite being billed on the box as a DD 5.1 soundtrack, it is only DD 2.0. Setting that aside, the soundtrack is fairly decent – loads of good swamp noises and the occasional crash to make you jump (but not too much – it is a 12 after all). In fact, if you play with the DSP settings on your amp, you can make it sound pretty impressive. Still, this combined with the certificate makes the box almost wilfully misleading.

The score by John Debney is crap. It is just monster movie by numbers – a bit of portentousness, a bit of pathos and then some rousing action. It is just a bad knock-off of Jurassic Park.

Features

There are a few half decent extras. You get a 10 minute making-of featurette. It is a bit self congratulatory but has some interesting snippets of information. The cast all seem pleasant enough if not overly bright (which is probably how they came to get involved with this turkey). Also, there is the usual selection of text based features which are surprising detailed. The history of the Komodo dragon is worth reading.

Of course, there is the big feature (highlighted on the front cover) and this is the exclusive preview of Ginger Snaps. This is pretty enjoyable and looks like a decent post-Buffy teenage werewolf movie. But it is just a trailer.

Actually, it is worth mentioning that the menus are fairly decent and the intro (selected scenes from the movie) is fairly effective and works better than the movie itself.

Conclusion

There is little to enjoy about Komodo. The script stinks. The characterisation is appalling – you cannot sympathise with any of the characters; they are just generic creations. The acting is dull – the actors are just reading their lines. Direction is basic. There is no tension, no thrills, no real ending – the film just stops. Bah, it is essentially a waste of your time.

If I had to find a nice thing to say, the Komodo dragon effects weren’t bad – not scary in the least but not bad. That and the fact that it is short. The box says that it is (approx) 90 minutes but it is actually 86. Actually 7 of those are credits so the movie is only 79 minutes long. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was wishing it to end, I would have felt short changed.

So, dull movie given a better treatment on DVD than it deserves. The packaging is very misleading (certificate, sound, running time). Overall, one to avoid.