LYLE, LYLE, CROCODILE: A Review Of The Live-Action/Animated Comedy

Introduction

Lyle, Lyle Crocodile is the second in a series of books featuring Lyle, a friendly crocodile living in New York City. Curiously, the Wikipedia page for the series contains a total of eleven sentences despite the book (and series) supposedly being a best-seller. This is also despite it having been previously adapted by HBO in 1987.

Wikipedia calls minimal pages like this a “stub.” This translates to “we’ve never heard of it either.” For comparison’s sake, the Wikipedia page for the word “the” is far more robust than that of the Lyle series. This basically means that the word “the” is more interesting to people than an alleged best-selling book series. Unfortunately for Sony Pictures, Lyle is likely to remain unknown after the film’s release.

Synopsis

Lyle, Lyle Crocodile begins with a long take of aspiring showman Hector Valenti (Javier Bardem). Skillfully, he weaves his way through people and backrooms until he eventually arrives on the stage of a nationally televised talent show. Throughout the process, he cuts in front of everyone else patiently waiting in line to repeat their already-rejected magic acts. A very technically sound scene, it establishes Valenti as clever, self-serving, and unwilling to take no for an answer. It is, without a doubt, the best scene in the film.

After being thrown out of the theater, Valenti wanders into an exotic pet shop. It’s there that he discovers a tiny singing crocodile (voiced by Shawn Mendes) who Valenti names Lyle. Thinking Lyle is his ticket to fame and fortune, Valenti purchases Lyle and takes him home. Valenti then immediately starts working on a duet act, even using the deed to his Brownstone as collateral for a loan to fund the act at a nearby theater. The two hit it off and all the stars seem to be aligned for their debut to be a smashing success.

The curtain raises on the show and Valenti bursts into their opening number. Lyle, getting stage fright, barely utters a peep, and the two are laughed off the stage. Valenti abandons Lyle, leaving him, the equivalent of an adolescent child, alone in the attic of the Brownstone to fend for himself. The film then jumps ahead eighteen months, where we meet the Primm family. – Dad Joseph (Scoot McNairy), stepmom Katie (Constance Wu), and young son Josh (Winslow Fegley) are all shown moving into the Brownstone.

Each of the Primms has a problem they must overcome. This can only be done by meeting their worst nightmare. Josh is terrified of everyone and everything in the city. Yet, one night of dumpster diving with Lyle turns Josh into Johnny Manhattan. Joseph’s math students at his new school bully him. Yet, one night of wrestling with Lyle reminds Joseph that whistles are really loud, and blowing a whistle at the students instantly gets them to behave. Katie has forgotten the joys of cooking food that isn’t one hundred percent pure health food, but one afternoon of baking a cake with Lyle reminds her that crocodiles are excellent chefs.

After the Primms conquer their issues, the film pivots to another subplot involving their jerk neighbor in the basement, Mr. Grumps (Brett Gelman). Mr. Grumps is developed exactly as deep as his name states. He looks for any reason to have the Primms evicted. Meanwhile, Valenti reenters the film. He invites himself to stay with the Primms and reheats his own subplot of getting rich off Lyle…again. 

Analysis

Despite Lyle, Lyle Crocodile ostensibly being based on just the first two books of the series, it plays out like it’s based on all of the books. Subsequently, and due to the volume of subplots, the rest of the film suffers from underdevelopment. Additionally, there is really no main plot to speak of. The characters are reduced to a name and whatever their problem is. Even the subplots themselves are little more than trivial anecdotes. In turn, that leads to performances that are forgettable at best.

A terrible singing performance from whomever Wu was lip-syncing to during the cake-baking scene does not help the film. Further, Bardem’s dancing is more disturbing than anything he did in No Country for Old Men (2007). Also, Valenti appears not to have changed even the tiniest bit while off-screen for eighteen months. If Lyle, Lyle Crocodile has one saving grace, it’s that adults aren’t the target audience, kids are.

Lyle is opening against the David O. Russell film Amsterdam, starring Christian Bale and Margot Robbie. This is in early October before kids go on fall break, with the final Halloween film, Halloween Ends, opening a week later. That’s a tough hill to climb for a film adapting a sixty-year-old picture book that nobody knows and even tougher when that film isn’t good enough to get a word-of-mouth boost.

Conclusion

When my ten-year-old son was asked what he thought about Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, he gave it an eight out of ten. His reasons were that he liked the beat-boxing rattlesnake and laughed at the pooping cat. It didn’t bother him that Lyle understood English and could sing yet couldn’t speak. He even gleaned a theme from this mess of a movie – change is hard. Isn’t that kind of the point of children’s books and movies? To teach kids a moral lesson? Even if they have to surround it with crocodile farts? Lyle, Lyle Crocodile may be the equivalent of someone pushing over a loaded bookshelf, but if it makes my son smile, I’ll take what I can get.

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile was released theatrically in the United States on October 7, 2022, by Columbia Pictures via Sony Pictures Releasing.

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