Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile review

LYLE, LYLE, CROCODILE: 

THIS SINGING CROCODILE IS VERY CHARMING, BUT I PROBABLY WON’T BE COMING BACK FOR AN ENCORE! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** ½ out of 4

COLUMBIA PICTURES

The titular singing crocodile in Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile

 

            In the tradition of Paddington, Peter Rabbit, and Clifford the Big Red Dog, Lyle the Crocodile hits the big screen in Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, the new family musical film based on the children’s book of the same name by Bernard Waber. The film is directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon (Blades of Glory, The Switch, Office Christmas Party) and is technically an adaptation of Waber’s first book, The House on East 88^th Street while Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile is the title of its sequel book. 

            I should make this perfectly clear; I have zero experience with the books, I’ve never read them as a child, nor do I remember hearing any friends in school talking about them growing up. I didn’t even know about the books until I saw the trailer for the film, so if you’re expecting a review that judges how faithful it is to the source material, look somewhere else. 

            Regardless of my experience with the original books (or lack thereof!), how does the film version hold up? It’s fine. 

            If you’ve seen the trailer, you know exactly what kind of movie it’s going to be, while it’s nowhere near terrible and it has a few clever ideas (Particularly the fact the crocodile cannot speak and can only communicate through facial expressions and singing!), it’s a very by-the-numbers kids film with a familiar plot and predictable clichés. The best way I can describe it is like a film version of the classic Looney Tunes cartoon, One Froggy Evening but without the semi-dark humor of it. 

            The film follows a family moving into a new home in New York City, but they soon discover a crocodile living in the house. It turns out this crocodile named Lyle (voiced by Shawn Mendes in his first feature film role) has an extraordinary gift and that gift is the ability to sing and belongs to an enthusiastic showman known as Hector P. Valenti (Javier Bardem-No Country for Old Men, Skyfall, Mother!). 

            At first the family is horrified that a crocodile has been living in their house but are soon enchanted by Lyle’s incredible skills especially the son, Josh (Winslow Fegley-Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made, Nightbooks, 8-Bit Christmas) who forms an inseparable friendship with Lyle. However, there is a catch, while Lyle enjoys singing among Hector and his new family, he has a severe case of stage fright and gets very shy while onstage in front of a large crowd. 

            To make matters worse, there’s a grumpy next-door neighbor known as Mr. Grumps, no pun intended (Brett Gelman-Fleabag, Stranger Things, Without Remorse) who threatens Lyle’s existence and will go to extreme lengths to keep everything in order. With the help of his family and Hector, Lyle will conquer his fear, light up the stage, and prove to the world that family can come in the strangest of places. 

            The film also stars Constance Wu (Fresh Off the Boat, Crazy Rich Asians, Hustlers) and Scott McNairy (Argo, Gone Girl, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice) as Josh’s parents, Katie and Joseph Primm. 

            Overall, Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile probably won’t be the big showstopper the trailers suggested, but it’s a passable if not, formulaic kids movie with a lot of charm. I set the bar pretty low when I was going into it and while I don’t think the movie works in its entirety, there are elements of it that I was entertained by. 

            Starting with the titular character himself, I really like what the film does with Lyle as this adorable and endearing crocodile who doesn’t speak but has a lot of expressiveness and personality in terms of his facial expressions and the animation on him. Ironically, the best scenes in the film aren’t when he’s seeing but rather when he’s interacting with Javier Bardem and/or the family and has to emote with only his face and through crocodile sounds, the animators did an excellent job at making this crocodile a fully fleshed-out character with very little communication. 

            Javier Bardem is great as Lyle’s charismatic owner and showman; he is putting his all into the performance despite being a supporting character. You believe the connection he has with Lyle given that he was the person who found him as a baby in the beginning and even though he’s a magician, he is easily the most human of the non-reptile characters. 

            Bardem’s character isn’t an evil showman trying to exploit Lyle’s talents, he’s just a down-on-his-luck individual who often makes mistakes, is a drinker, and is in debt to people. Every scene involving both Bardem and Lyle is done very well to the point where I wished the film revolved around them instead of the family. 

            Sadly, everything else falls under the category of recycled kids movie clichés we’ve seen a million times before. The new kid doesn’t fit in at school, hiding the creature from others after discovering and befriending it, the nosey neighbor as the villain (At least it wasn’t a guy in a suit like the Clifford movie’s villain!), the creature being taken away and locked up and the human characters have to rescue it, and both a chase climax as well as a court case ending, it hits all the familiar beats as other family films and sadly doesn’t do much new with said tropes. 

            The songs and musical numbers are hit-or-miss, some are catchy and entertaining to watch while others feel overproduced and manufactured. Granted, it is from the same songwriters as the divisive, The Greatest Showman but whatever you think of that movie, there is a lot of passion and energy put into those musical numbers whereas in this, many of them are pretty standard and despite Shawn Mendes’ mad talents, I don’t think he was the right pick for Lyle’s voice. 

            I praised Lyle in terms of the animation on him and his character, but I do not buy Shawn Mendes’ voice coming out of shy crocodile. It sounded too manufactured and as if it was recorded in a soundstage with filters put on the voice, if it was just Shawn Mendes singing normally without the overproduced vocal effects, maybe I’d be humming a different tune (No pun intended!), but as is, it just felt like he was brought in because of name recognition, though I’m sure Shawn Mendes fans will absolutely love it so I’m not one to complain. 

            If you got kids who want to see it then sure, you could take them to this for a sugary, inoffensive tale about a singing crocodile. However, if you’re looking for something with more substance then I’d suggest staying home and watching both Paddington and Peter Rabbit films instead.