Greg McLean's much delayed follow-up to Wolf Creek has finally seen the light of day and when all was said and done I thought that Rogue was one of the better water-based creature flicks to cross my path in some time - at least for the first two-thirds. It's unfortunate that after McLean's taken time to establish characters with little, subtle touches (like the man pouring his wife's ashes into the river) and ramped up the suspense rather well by not over-doing it on the gore or CGI beastie, that the finale set in the dark of the creature's den felt more cliché and ho-hum than anything.

This isn't to say that Rogue isn't a watchable effort, because it definitely is, and it's certainly one beautiful movie to boot as there's plentiful shots of the stunning Australian wilderness. But what drags it down from "awesome" to merely "entertaining" is the fact that almost all the characters are thrown to the side for a 'man vs. beast' finale that, despite having its moments, just didn't do a damn thing for me.

American travel writer Pete (Michael Vartan) arrives in a small Australian town to pen a guide to the outback and becomes one of the passengers on river tour guide Kate's (Radha Mitchell) boat where she promises the typical gaggle of tourists the chance to see one of the infamous crocodiles that make the area their home. This is exciting to our visitors, especially when they see another boat getting a croc to leap out of the water for some meaty treats. And apart from a visit from obnoxious local, Neil (Sam Worthington), everything is going smoothly.

That's about to change, and quickly, when they spot a flare in the sky. Following an unwritten code, Kate feels obligated to respond and upon arriving in the area they spot a sunken boat. They themselves end up stranded on a small island, where the tide is due to rise as the day wears on, when their boat is battered and pretty much sunk by a giant crocodile who doesn't like them invading on its territory.

The remainder of the movie follows our writer, guide, and tourists and they attempt to figure out how to escape their predicament seeing as they can't enter the drink for fear of being attacked and the water is slowly eliminating dry ground they can stand on. Of course, this gives McLean ample opportunity to deliver thrills (which he does quite nicely during a scene involving a rope bride strung between two trees) and lets our cast do some bickering. It also brings up a few logic gaps as I sat there wondering why our croc just wouldn't go onto the island after them since there's really nowhere they could run to and it could swim faster than any of them could paddle.

Rogue efficiently does its job for the first hour or so. I found myself caring about what happens to the characters, was actually tense during a few scenes, and was impressed about how well McLean seemed to handle the actors. Mitchell (Silent Hill) and Vartan do decently as the main leads but they're upstaged by some of the lesser roles as John Jarratt portrays his widower character perfectly and Geoff Morrell gives the movie some mild comic relief as nerdy loner Allen. It was actually a bit strange to see Jarratt in such a muted role considering how intense and genuinely frightening he was as the baddie in Wolf Creek.

It's not likely this is going to make genre fans think McLean is the next big horror director but it does show he has skill blending muted moments with horror and also has a good knack for making the most of his locations and actors. It was an entertaining time and it offered up enough satisfying moments but, as mentioned before, it's stumble into by-the-book territory in the finale felt more like treading water than taking a chunk out of the audience.

Review based on unrated version. (Chris Hartley, 8/16/08)

Directed By: Lewis Teague.
Written By: Don Carlos Dunaway, Lauren Currier.

Starring: Dee Wallace, Danny Pintauro, Daniel Hugh-Kelly, Ed Lauter.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: This looks pretty damn stellar on disc as it handles the constant bright colours of the landscape shots extremely well, is clean throughout, and never looks grainy during the plentiful nighttime shots. This is the best transfer of the Dimension Extreme line of discs I've seen so far.

Extras: Fans of the movie, or those just interested in how genre flicks are made, will find a lot of good information contained in the special features here as we get a trailer, brief featurettes on the effects, music, and Northern Territory filming location, a featurette entitled "The Real Rogue" that gives a hanful of information on the real AUstralian crocodiles, an engaging and informative "making of" featurette that runs almost an hour, and a commentary from McLean that's just as listenable as his one on Wolf Creek was.