Main cast: Radha Mitchell (Kate Ryan), Michael Vartan (Pete McKell), Sam Worthington (Neil), Caroline Brazier (Mary Ellen), Stephen Curry (Simon), Celia Ireland (Gwen) and John Jarratt (Russell)
Director: Greg McLean
Oh boy, I hope you have a good ear for thick Australian accent if you want to watch this movie because most of the cast of Rogue can speak very quickly in that accent. Thank heavens there were subtitles when the movie made it to this part of my world. Sure, some of the subtitles (which are in Malay) can be most amusing when the translator obviously misunderstood what was said on screen, but this movie will make good practice, I suppose, for that day when Hugh Jackman finally asks me to marry him.
The plot is simple. We’re in the Australian outbacks and Kate Ryan, our heroine, drives a boat full of tourists on a tour along the scenic river. Among these tourists is our hero, Pete McKell, who is noteworthy if only because the movie bothers to give him a background. He’s an author of tourist books. Yes, folks, that’s what poor Agent Vaughan is reduced to doing after his stint with the CIA came to an end. At any rate, Pete along with a bunch of archetypes (“hothead”, “young lady”, “annoying woman who will have a breakdown at the worst moment”, “wife”, “fat man”, “hot handsome jerk who dies way too early, even before he gets a chance to take his clothes off, bastard”, et cetera) are happily enjoying the scenery when they notice a flare in the sky. Kate decides to take a quick detour just to check and see whether anyone needs assistance, only to end up stranding herself and her passengers right in the heart of a territory where a really big and hungry saltwater crocodile rules. The crocodile can only feel that a buffet has landed on its scaly lap.
I won’t go as far as to say that this movie is to crocodiles what Jaws was to sharks because… well, Jaws is genuinely terrifying. Rogue on the other hand has a perfunctory feel to it, coming off like just another movie where a monster wants to eat people. Nonetheless, the movie has some well-done human drama that makes this movie nearly memorable… that is, until it decides to turn into a man-versus crocodile cartoon in the last half hour or so and makes me laugh at how absurd the whole thing is.
Rogue isn’t a bad monster movie by any means, but it is not a particularly memorable one either. The last half hour or so really brings down the movie by being so utterly over-the-top ridiculous.
