Lake Placid

REVIEW
TV's golden boy David E. Kelley ("Ally McBeal," "The Practice") wrote the screenplay for this tired horror send-up. Judging by this, he'd better stick to the small screen. A giant crocodile is terrorizing a peaceful lakeside community in Maine. Pullman is the fish-and-game warden, Fonda is the scientist, Gleeson the glib sheriff, and Platt the eccentric croc expert all investigating a series of deaths. The characters spend the entire film yelling at each other, in between the unfunny barbs. Kelley's story is neither scary nor funny, only head-scratchingly mediocre. Though the giant croc is kinda fun (when you get to see the whole thing), the only truly scary thing in the movie is Betty White's vocabulary.