This is exactly the type of scary, thrilling fun I want every summer: a creature feature with a few nasty shocks that reminds you nature doesn't play it safe.
Crawl begins (after a lengthy intro) with a hurricane approaching Florida. Haley (a physically impressive Kaya Scodelario) treks through it to find her father Dave (Barry Pepper), who is not answering his phone. He's not at his apartment, so she continues through the storm to her old family home, now for sale, and finds Dave's car. As water begins to flood the street, Haley discovers her father in the crawlspace beneath the house, wounded and unconscious. While attempting to pull him to safety, she is chased by a large alligator. Of course we already knew what had attacked Dave, and it seems a bit difficult to believe Haley didn't recognize (or at least suspect) the row of tooth marks in his shoulder and chest. But once Dave awakens, he reveals his theory that the gator slithered in through a drainage pipe.
Speaking of things that are difficult to believe, this movie demands a lot -- a lot -- of disbelief suspension on our part, and I personally wasn't always able to acquiesce. Things escalate quickly after the more or less tense opening scenes, as the crawlspace begins to fill with water and another gator appears. A pair of strangers outside come to help; later a couple officers show up. I think you know how they end up on the flooded street swimming with gators. Before long, the levees break and a tidal wave come gushing in. It's all worst-case scenario, made worse yet by the bloodthirsty gators themselves. These are not your nature documentary breed; these CGI monstrosities are fast and always moving, and seem happy to kill for sport.
Unfortunately, the gators to my eye were not always realistically rendered by CGI. Some shots are pure horror gold, while others felt like they belonged on a Syfy special. Similarly, some plot elements and attack scenes are genius; then you have the laughable "rules" that predatory gators abide by that are capitalized in one ridiculous scene. In the floodwaters on the street, Haley swims out of the drain pipe and attempts to hide from a gator floating overhead; a single bubble escapes her and floats up, up, up to the reptile's belly, which the beast feels before turning violently upon her. Seriously? You're in a bloody hurricane, in an environment you've never had, the floodwaters are surging, and you feel a single bubble on your belly?
But it's still wildly entertaining. Despite some of the more ridiculous -- and silly -- twists of the movie, Crawl manages to be a delightful way to spend a hot summer evening. If you're like me, you love a nature-gone-wrong monster movie, and this certainly fits the bill. And it's surprisingly brutal. Of course, there are plot elements I wish had been expounded (the gator baby nest) and design or execution techniques I'd have employed (why are Florida floodwaters so clear?). Mostly, I felt the film's editing and pacing were a bit off, and I'd have preferred a more Don't Breathe kind of approach to the story: more streamlined, and as close to real time as possible. That would be some slick stuff.
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