{"id":55575,"date":"2022-10-10T15:15:56","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T19:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=55575"},"modified":"2022-10-10T15:16:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T19:16:09","slug":"movie-review-lyle-lyle-crocodile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2022\/10\/movie-review-lyle-lyle-crocodile\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review – Lyle, Lyle Crocodile"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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            After several weeks of increasingly ineffective horror movies, \u201cLyle, Lyle, Crocodile\u201d was a nice change of pace. Actually, it was nice to have anything at all for the kids, who haven\u2019t had a movie since \u201cDC League of Super-Pets\u201d all the way back in July. In many ways, this harmless piece about a singing crocodile is exactly what the movie landscape \u2013 maybe the American landscape \u2013 needs right now. Unfortunately I\u2019m much more grateful for this movie\u2019s mere existence than for what it actually brings to the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            We follow Lyle (Shawn Mendes) as he bounces between two families. First up is magician Hector P. Valenti (Javier Bardem, putting in much more effort than you\u2019d expect for a movie with this title). Valenti can\u2019t catch a break in showbusiness, and his old-fashioned act isn\u2019t exactly a hit on reality TV. He decides what he needs is an animal, and in a rare bit of good luck, he happens upon the singing croc. Lyle is shy and only communicates through song, but singing alone is good enough for the act. Valenti raises Lyle until he\u2019s fully-grown, at which point he books them in a theater, offering up his family\u2019s NYC brownstone as collateral. The act bombs when Lyle proves too scared to sing, and Valenti is ruined. If you\u2019ve ever seen the cartoon \u201cOne Froggy Evening\u201d with Michigan J. Frog, it\u2019s basically that. If you\u2019ve never seen \u201cOne Froggy Evening,\u201d I apologize for your childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valenti is forced to go on the road and leave Lyle behind in the brownstone, which is sold off. In come the Primm family: dad Mr. Primm (Scott McNairy), stepmom Mrs. Primm (Constance Wu), and son Josh (Winslow Fegley). Josh doesn\u2019t fit in at school or in New York, but he makes fast friends with Lyle once the latter is discovered. The parents are freaked out at first, but they too come around on Lyle once they discover that he can cook, wrestle, sing, and rock a scarf. The singing infuriates downstairs neighbor Mr. Grumps (Brett Gelman), who wants Lyle taken away by animal control. Valenti returns and wants Lyle for himself. Will Lyle be imprisoned, forced into showbusiness, or get to stay with his new family. This is a kids\u2019 movie, so it\u2019s a pretty safe bet it won\u2019t be prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best thing about the movie is its overarching sweetness. Lyle is the nicest crocodile in the world, even if he is accident-prone. The Primms want nothing more than to spend time with Josh, and it\u2019s because the youngster likes the carnivore that they welcome him into the family. And the musical numbers are all pleasant as well, with some covers and some originals courtesy of the team from \u201cThe Greatest Showman,\u201d and all featuring Mendes\u2019 heavenly voice. I like that crowd-pleasing style, so those were highlights of the movie for me. As for covers, don\u2019t worry, a certain Elton John song gets some inevitable love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, the movie is a mess in other parts, which prevents me from giving it an overall recommendation. The \u201cwell-meaning animated\/CGI animal getting into trouble in New York City\u201d troupe was overdone last year in both \u201cTom and Jerry\u201d and \u201cClifford, the Big Red Dog,\u201d though I\u2019d say this is a notch above both of those movies. The Primm family may be nicer than Valenti, but they\u2019re not nearly as interesting, and it drags the movie out when Lyle has to win over one parent and then the other, when both at once would have been sufficient. Perhaps worst of all is the ending, with a rushed courtroom scene that relies on Valenti\u2019s family history, which has never been discussed before. \u201cLyle, Lyle, Crocodile\u201d is a movie that the family needs to see only if you\u2019re low on other options, but there aren\u2019t too many other options, so sure, go see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLyle, Lyle, Crocodile\u201d is rated PG for mild peril and thematic elements. Its running time is 106 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver             After several weeks of increasingly ineffective horror movies, \u201cLyle, Lyle, Crocodile\u201d was a nice change of pace. Actually, it was nice to have anything at all… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":55576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[1805,1804],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55578,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55575\/revisions\/55578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}