In Crawl, a Category 5 hurricane is bearing down on Florida and Haley Keller (Kaya Scodelario) can't reach her dad, Dave (Barry Pepper). Haley starts to panic and decides to drive to her childhood home to see if she can see what he is up to. When she gets to the house and can't find him anywhere, she decides to check the crawlspace where she finds her dad, who is now injured, as well as a couple of giant alligators that are protecting the only way out. With the hurricane intensifying, the crawlspace starts to flood so Haley must find a way to save herself as well as her dad.
The thing I love most about Crawl is the havoc that the gators cause. When it comes to creature movies, I go in to them looking forward to seeing the carnage they create and seeing the body count rise. With Crawl, I was not disappointed. The setting is contained mainly to the house, but the gators are still able to find ways to eat or badly injure a fair amount of people. That probably comes across a little twisted, but that's what these movies are for. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when someone is swimming in the water and the camera moves into the air and you just see 5 gators swarm around him and just grab on to a few different body parts and enjoy some lunch.
Another aspect I enjoy was the father/daughter relationship between Haley and Dave. Early on in the movie, there are flashbacks that show Dave being Haley's swim coach. Because he spent so much time focusing on coaching her, his marriage became strained and Haley ends up feeling like she is guilty for causing her parents marriage to end. I really enjoy seeing Barry Pepper in movies and felt he did a great job playing Dave. He is wonderful at playing that broken dad that is willing to do anything to protect his daughter. Kaya is also fantastic has Haley. The movie mainly focuses on her and if she doesn't sell the paranoia and fear it would fall apart. Luckily, Kaya does a great job and the scenes with her father get pretty emotional at times.
The only real criticism I have for Crawl is the same one most of these types of movies have, characters just make stupid decisions or have injuries that should be pretty life-threatening, but they just act like it was a bug bite within 5 minutes of it occurring. It's a minor nitpick that just comes with the territory of movies like this.
Overall, I really enjoyed Crawl. The relationship between Haley and Dave was believable and helped fill in the slow periods between the action. The gator action was a blast to watch and at times pretty intense and gory. Also, the movie gets extra points for having the main character's last name be Keller. Crawl is a fun time at the movies and does a great job of filling in the gaps between all the franchise blockbusters out this summer. I recommend it.
4 out of 5 Stars
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