Easily the best of three giant-croc offerings from 2007 — Primeval and Black Water being the others — Rogue is a semisolid slice of Ozploitation from Wolf Creek writer/director/producer Greg Mclean.
His near-two-hour tour plops viewers on a two-bit riverboat commanded by Kate Ryan (Radha Mitchell, Pitch Black), an Aussie native who’s never left the territory and seems to love her life of driving tourists up and down the muddy waters of the outback. On the half-full voyage are, among others, a grieving widower; two married couples, one with a teen daughter (Mia Wasikowska, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland); and an American magazine travel writer (Michael Vartan, TV’s Alias).
A flare for help diverts Ryan’s usual route into sacred land. Shortly after finding the flare’s source — ripped to pieces, of course — she and her passengers are bumped by one mega-mammoth crocodile onto a pocket of land. It’d be a safe spot until rescue if it weren’t located in a tidal river, making them sitting ducks at the mercy of ticking time.
A midpoint, midnight set piece in which they attempt to move to safer parts by traversing a rope hanging over the river is a real nerve-wracker, well-orchestrated by Mclean. It’s all downhill from there, mate, as the last third is occupied by a long, quiet stretch of Vartan attempting to outsmart a CGI creation. Had Mclean kept the monster mostly unseen, Rogue may have worked wonders for its entirety.
His camera captures some beautiful scenery of Northern Australia, but also some horrible conditions that make me never want to visit: the unrelenting heat, the ever-present flies, the ass crack of Avatar‘s Sam Worthington. I’ll continue to settle for vicarious, periodic trips to Outback Steakhouse. —Rod Lott