In the grand tradition of post 2000s cinema, following in the footsteps of films like “Stuart Little,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” “Peter Rabbit,” and “Paddington,” here comes yet another film featuring a CGI animated talking animal interacting with a modern-day family to craft various hijinks and life lessons, all based on a classic children’s book series. But this one is different; in this one, the animal doesn’t talk, he sings!
“Lyle Lyle Crocodile” sees magician turned stage performer Hector Valenti, played with wide-eyed whimsy by Javier Bardem (“No Country for Old Men,” “Skyfall”), finding a best friend and singing partner in Lyle, a crocodile who can’t talk but can sing! However, after Valenti disappears for a while, a new family moves into his old building, finding Lyle in the attic. Hilarity ensues.
The film kind of stars Shawn Mendes as Lyle, and his “starring” role is just one of numerous oddities that leave you scratching your head by the time the adventure is over, but more on that in a bit. Constance Wu (“Hustlers,” “Crazy Rich Asians”) plays Mrs. Primm, the matriarch of the family that takes over Valenti’s building, with her husband, Mr. Primm, played by Scoot McNairy (“Halt and Catch Fire,” “Narcos: Mexico”), and her son, Josh, played by Winslow Fegley (“8-Bit Christmas,” “Nightbooks”). Wu is clearly enjoying herself, but the material simply isn’t there to provide anyone with anything interesting to do. The same goes for McNairy or Fegley. Bardem is mostly saved from this, purely based on his own larger than life charms managing to overpower the doldrums of this formulaic script.
Directed by duo Will Speck and Josh Gordon (“The Switch,” “Office Christmas Party”) from a script by William Davies (“Johnny English,” “How to Train Your Dragon”), there is a lot of weirdness here that needs to be gone into, the weirdest of which is Lyle’s voice. He, as a character, cannot speak. Whenever he tries to, only guttural animalistic noises come out. However, when he sings, is the sultry tones of Mendes crooning about. And it never stops feeling weird. Maybe when he’s a tiny baby crocodile, it’s acceptable, but when he’s a towering seven-foot-tall crocodile dancing around the kitchen with Wu, it feels too weird for suspension of disbelief.
Lyle as a character simply looks too “real.” In the pursuit of realism, he’s been rendered with the same hyper realistic level of detail that one would find in any normal crocodile in the background of a jungle set adventure movie. It makes everything just feel too weird, as if at any moment he might snap and take a bite out of Bardem’s head. The story itself isn’t good enough to help overcome any of this weirdness either, mostly trafficking in typical “believe in yourself” messaging that’s plastered counseling office posters and family films for the past three decades at least.
The songs, from the writing duo of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (“Dear Evan Hansen,” “The Greatest Showman”), most well-known for the music of “La La Land”, do a lot to prove that maybe the music from that movie was just a fluke. The music, like the messaging, is so basic, content to just dance about in typical pop music fashions and melodies, spouting the same “I was lost but now I’m found” messaging of anything you could find within five minutes of flipping through radio stations. The songs, like the rest of the film, aren’t bad but don’t inspire any level of memorability.
What’s here is a film that’s unobtrusive and unoffensive, but nevertheless bizarre in the execution of its main element. There’s nothing here that’s terrible, but nothing that goes beyond a simple sense of blasé filmmaking. It’s hard to find anything particularly insightful or critical to say about it because the film itself doesn’t inspire much beyond some glazed eyes. This story has been told before and in much better ways as well. It’s hard to imagine kids or families getting excited at the prospect of it being told using the voice of a Vine star turned international singing sensation. When the most memorable part of your film is how out of place your lead character looks, then maybe the film you’re making just isn’t destined to leave an impression of any kind. 2.5/5
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