Just what I expected

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Mutant alligator--30-40 feet in length--was once flushed down the toilet as a baby, and for the last 12 years has been surviving in the Missouri sewers on the discarded pet carcasses from a pharmaceutical laboratory injecting their animal subjects with an experimental synthetic form of testosterone. Homicide detective Robert Forster, besieged with unanswerable questions from the media after severed limbs begin popping up in the water canals, investigates. Half black-humored thriller in the wake of "Jaws", scored with what appears to be a "Jaws" parody soundtrack (or it could be an homage, though it's most likely just a rip-off). Forster gives a seasoned, well-rounded performance, though I'm not sure his dramatic weight and conviction is what screenwriter John Sayles had in mind here. Is the movie just a quickie product made to cash-in on the 'freakish animal' fad or a project taken seriously by those involved? Certainly Sayles' environmental message is meant to give us pause--and Forster's burnt-out detective is an instantly identifiable characterization--but all this in the service of a picture about a hungry alligator on a feeding frenzy? *1/2 from ****

I must say that this film caught me by surprise. Having endured terrible "Jaws" ripoffs such as "Tentacles" and "Devilfish", I expected very little from this film in terms of quality, but was gladly mistaken. This is a film that takes into account the potential similarities to "Jaws" and takes every opportunity to differentiate itself rather than delve into parody. Instead of upper class suburban New York we have downtrodden Chicago slums, and of course the titular crocodilian in place of a shark. Without spoiling any details, I can't point out much else. However, to anyone who may have passed on this film due to potential similarities to a certain popular Spielberg film, give it a watch. You will not be disappointed.

Meet Ramon, probably the most adorable little baby alligator I've ever seen. His owner, a little girl named Marisa, loves him dearly... that is, until good ol' Pops flushes poor Ramon down the porcelain express, where he ends up in the city sewer system, surviving on the illegally dumped bodies of lab animals from a corrupt corporation above-ground, Slade Pharmaceuticals (Umbrella Corporation, eat your heart out). When little Marisa grows up, she becomes a scientist, and as for Ramon, he's grown up as well... literally. Those dead lab rats he's been feeding on had growth hormones injected into them, which accumulated in Ramon and made him huge, and now he's out for blood, heading for the snobby country club community. Oh, good heavens! >:) What else can I say? I loved Alligator, it has a vague environmental message (which I don't enjoy since I'm pro-pollution), but it wasn't really enough to disrupt the movie. The effects weer cheesy but classic, I liked the soundtrack, and the acting was great! Let's face it, the story is original, and Ramon was so damned cool he's hard not to love right away. If you're a horror film fan, you'll definitely want to add this one to your watch list!

This is a typical 80s B-movie, a story where Chicago is terrorized by a larger-than-life alligator, who as a baby was flushed down the toilet and grew to over 36 feet long over the years by feeding on discarded lab animals injected with growth hormones.Robert Forster plays cop David Madison, who is leading the charge to track down and destroy the reptile, and Robin Riker plays reptile expert Dr. Marisa Kendall, who teams up with Madison in the hunt. The two have decent acting and good on-screen chemistry, and they carried the movie over the more campy supporting cast members (Michael Gazzo's Chief Clark character sounded like he smokes 20 packs a day and Dean Jagger's Slade character doesn't know the meaning of speaking clearly).There are plenty of alligator action (the special and visual effects for it were quite good), chomping its way through those unfortunate enough to get caught in his path, and plenty of spills and screams as the creature makes its way out of the sewers and into lakes and swimming pools. But, the plot went all over the place from the middle of the movie towards the end. Alligator scenes shifted back and forth quickly to scenes with Forster and Kendall courting, which I thought takes away the tension and thrills of the film. The cop's investigation scenes are interrupted by the unnecessary subplot with the Brock character (Henry Silva), which deviated from the story's momentum. He didn't have much screen time to serve an elaborate role in the movie.Overall, it's basically a monster-on-the-loose movie, with plenty of action, but limited suspense.Grade C-