Caught between warm and whimsical family adventure comedy and hallucinatory fever dream, you may have to trust your kids on 'Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile.'
, who gives a bravura comedic turn as their downstairs neighbor and cat enthusiast, Mr. Grumps, and Javier Bardem, who goes for broke in what can only be described as a tour de force performance of tragic clownery playing magician-musician Hector P. Valenti. The showman originally discovered Lyle singing the salsa classic “I Like It Like That” in the back of a pet shop, and he has Col. Tom Parker dreams dancing in his head, hoping to make a buck off Lyle’s talent.
Most humans are, understandably, terrified when encountering the enormous apex predator wearing a jaunty scarf. But when Lyle opens his jaws, it’s not to chomp on a head but to let loose his dulcet tones, courtesy of. His repertoire includes classic tunes, as well as original Broadway-style belters composed by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
“Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” goes for a kind of “Clifford the Big Red Dog” vibe, with the whole “fantastical pet in New York City” plot, but there’s not enough connective tissue in the writing, which feels choppy and abrupt. Pasek and Paul’s songs end up having to do much of the emotional heavy lifting, and the rest of the film feels cobbled together from random parts scavenged from other kids movies and pop culture ephemera.
The main conflict is Lyle’s stage fright, which prevents Hector from monetizing his discovery. A TikTok-like app called Sweep is introduced, seemingly the perfect solution for the stage fright and an apt contemporary reference, but that is swept aside for a hackneyed climax featuring a chase across New York City to perform onstage at an “America’s Got Talent”-type show called “Show Us What You’ve Got” so that Lyle can have his Susan Boyle moment. It just all feels rather dated.
In moments, “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” is a warm and whimsical family adventure comedy, but at other times, it’s a hallucinatory fever dream. Both are fine options, but the purgatory in between these tones is too strange to actually work. But what do I know? The kids and parents at the screening erupted in applause at the end, so apparently, a star has been born.
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