Rogue (2007)

Country of Origin: Australia

Trailer: 

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: Australians and tourists run afoul of a large reptile.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• I hope the version I’m watching is in English.
• I like her in the X-Men fine enough, but does she really need her own spinoff? I guess we’ll see.
• I assume most Australians just sweat and rub dust out of their eyes 100% of the time?
• This a-hole journalist (Peter) is in Australia to write a story about croc attacks, which is like an Australian journalist coming to the U.S. to write about dipshits.
• Wait, an American journalist covering animal attacks in Australia?? Sounds kind of familiar….. ah yes, The Badge, the Bible, and Bigfoot.
• So here are our protagonists for this picture, a tour boat full of white people.
• Would this boat tour be fun? Gorgeous scenery, but I guess you’d really need to love crocodiles. I’ve seen plenty of gators in my day, and I do not care for them. I have taken boat tours for dolphins and manatees, but the manatees won’t destroy your flesh and bones. At least, that’s what they want us to believe…
• Moonshiners!
• Hey, it’s Sam Worthington, star of the Avatar movies, of which I’ve watched the first one once, am not interested in watching it ever again, or any of its 47 sequels.
• Also, a girl in this is played by the girl in those god-awful Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland pictures. I don’t recall ever seeing her in anything else.
• One of the tourists dumps ashes into the river. Nothing attracts crocodiles more, you idiot!
• This tour group fits our international theme quite nicely as there are Australians, English, Americans, the rest. Could’ve maybe thrown in one person of even slight color, though?
• The tour boat sees a flare, which means these crocs are organized and have fingers.
• A croc rams into the boat and this is now a complete ripoff of the Universal Studios Jaws ride. Although I’ve always hoped someone would make a movie out of that.

• Now they’re stranded in the croc’s territory, but ALL of Australia is croc territory.
• You know, Steve Irwin died the year before this came out so it’s pretty insensitive.
• I still don’t understand the title of this movie, not one of these characters is wearing rouge.
• I was looking away for a sec and got very confused but one of the guys got taken down by the monster croc offscreen. Pretty clever but if you’re someone with a bad attention span you’ll need to rewind. Maybe even multiple times.
• So basically they’re all stuck on this small island, and either have to wait or risk swimming to shore, but it’s kind of a plot hole that Kate the boat guide didn’t steer it into the actual shore, which is right there, instead of that island.
• Jerkwad Sam Worthington and his jerkwad buddy who is 1000000000000% going to get eaten show up drunk off their tits. Then his buddy gets eaten.
• I have no doubt this will come up, but crocodiles can also go on land, so being huddled up on this tiny island isn’t really going to save anyone.
• Kate just had to remind everyone to stay away from the water. No shit, Shercroc.

• Sam is going to make a swim for it. He went from rambunctious asswipe to hero very smoothly.
• I wish the U.S. would adopt the term “piece of piss.”
• So Sam swam a rope to the shore so everyone can cross it, but I’m going to wager a guess that not everyone is going to cross it safely. Just a hunch.
• So Mary Ellen, whose husband was eaten offscreen previously, has frozen up on the rope, and the Englishman and his family decide they can’t wait any longer and also try to cross. It’s a buffet!
• Well Sam surprisingly gets eaten. The croc was only trying to protect its deposit of Unobtanium.
• Oh and everyone on the rope falls in the water but does make it back to the island. Which they swam towards instead of the shore.
• Then the English arsehole gets eaten. Eh, it would’ve been more fun if that whole family was picked off one-by-one while they were on the rope, but I’m not an Australian filmmaker nor a crocodile.
• Someone needs their medication, which is always a trope in these stuck-in-one-place movies.
• Peter finds a big grappling hook and comes up with a plan to distract the croc while everyone swims for it, and they want to use Kate’s boat dog as bait! DO IT!!!
• Oh, they just use two dead birds instead. Cowards.
• Didn’t really expect Kate to get crunched, but at least the dog made it.
• Peter can’t find the rest of the group, and even the dog has left him. Maybe you shouldn’t have made fun of Australians in the beginning, Petey.
• Looks like he came across the croc’s lair. I bet he somehow finds Kate alive there.
• Yup. Well, actually the dog found her, so he’s the real hero. Or is he the ultimate coward for letting these atrocities happen?

• Looking at this croc CGI, it’s good that this movie is mostly at night and under murky water.
• Peter is trying to hold off the croc with a big stick. I’m not sure what his intended outcome is.
• He just lost a bunch of fingers, maybe that was it.
• The croc charges at Peter and is impaled through the head with the broken stick. Strong stick.
• Oh some more good news, Peter’s fingers are back on his hand.
• Then the rest of the group is saved by a squadron of helicopters like it’s the ending of Lord of the Flies. Because of all the god damn flies around there.

Final Thoughts: Not too croccin’ bad, mate. It’s very simple and we’ve seen this kind of thing a million times before but it was well done and mostly a good time. Recommended for tour boat guides, reporters who hate all of their assignments, lousy swimmers, people who cry but don’t really mean it, and lovers of vinyl slip-on shoes.

How Australian Is It?: Sweat, flies, dust, crocodiles, this movie couldn’t be more Australian if Paul Hogan popped out of a tub of Vegemite. 90% Tariff

Score: 6.75 Pieces of Piss (out of 10)