Lyle Lyle Crocodile

Lyle Lyle Crocodile is a very strange kiddie movie.  Normally, I would say that with a big grin on my face, but this movie brought me no joy.  It's heart is mechanical and barely there, and its brain is totally absent.  It mystified me how a movie about a family living with a CG anthropomorphic crocodile who enjoys singing pop songs and Broadway show tunes could be so bland and forgettable.  This cries out for a wild and creative touch, but everything about it is by the numbers.

And yet, I found the film's opening moments promising, as we're introduced to a scene-chewing Javier Bardem going over the top as wannabe magician and entertainer, Hector P. Valenti.  Things kick off with him patrolling the streets of Manhattan for something that will push his act over the top and make him famous.  He finds it in the back room of an exotic pet store when he discovers a tiny baby crocodile named Lyle that can't talk, but can somehow sing with the voice of pop star Shawn Mendes.  He takes the little guy home, and they work on a sensational musical duo act.  But when the time comes for them to perform on the stage in front of a massive audience, Lyle suffers from stage fright, and can only let out a tiny squeak.

I immediately asked myself why doesn't Hector just videotape Lyle singing and dancing around his home, and upload it to YouTube.  It would go viral in seconds, and all of his problems would be over.  Alas, Hector decides to go on the road alone to try to raise money, and leaves Lyle alone in his New York brownstone home.  Flash forward 18 months later, and the Primm Family moves into the home.  It's this moment that the movie veers hard into kid's movie cliches, and never looks back.  The Primms young son is Josh (Winslow Fegley), a shy and neurotic Middle School kid who has a hard time making friends.  He discovers Lyle living in the attic, and quickly bonds with the creature when he finds out it can sing.  They explore the rooftops of New York, and go dumpster diving together.  Somehow, this helps Josh come out of his shell and make friends at school, though I'll be darned if I know why, as the movie doesn't say.

Lyle quickly wins over Josh's dad Joseph (Scoot McNairy) and stepmom Katie (Constance Wu), and becomes one of the family.  Again, we never really get to see these characters bond with Lyle.  One minute they're terrified by the sight of their kid with a crocodile, and the next, Katie's singing with the reptile in the kitchen, while Joseph is won over when Lyle reminds him of his high school wrestling days.  Even when Hector comes back into the picture, the movie is just curiously flat and boring.  It goes through all the standard cliches of a kid's movie, but with no passion or interest.  There's the mean and nosy neighbor (Brett Gelman), the girl at school who warms up to Josh, and a lot of original musical numbers that all sound exactly alike and that I forgot as soon as they were done.

But nothing could prepare me for the climax of Lyle Lyle Crocodile which must pull off some kind of record by combining four completely different climax cliches into one ending.  We get Hector and Josh having to break Lyle out of the Zoo after he's taken away by animal control, we have a race down the streets of Manhattan to get to a singing competition, we have the singing competition itself (complete with the parents showing up late, but just in time to see their boy perform on stage), and finally, we even get a courtroom scene.  Yes.  A courtroom scene, complete with a stern judge deciding Lyle's fate, and whether he will get to stay with the loving Primm family, or if he will have to go back to the zoo.  I would have been beside myself with hysterical laughter if the movie wasn't so boring.

I wonder if the filmmakers realize they've basically done an inferior remake of a movie that came out around this time last year, Clifford the Big Red Dog.  Both are based on beloved children's books franchises, both focus on a lonely child living in Manhattan who get a magical animal friend with the aid of an eccentric adult character played by a respected actor, and both are about how the child and their family grow to love the strange creature, despite initially being afraid of it, while having to keep it  a secret, and when that secret gets out, they have to protect it, and there's a chase down the streets of New York.  The thing is, I liked Clifford.  It was a sweet movie with genuine heart.  This movie knows what plot points to hit, but it acts like its merely checking them off a list.  It never once gets close to the heart of these characters, and make them into anything more than placeholders inserted into a generic screenplay.

I found a lot of things about Lyle strange or bizarre, but not in a way that made me smile.  It simply did not charm or delight me in any way, and it bored me to no end.  I did not find Lyle himself cute or entertaining, and aside from Bardem completely throwing himself into the material with little care, the human actors were dull.  This needed to be more manic, fanciful, and alive. 

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