The Best Movie Ever | Reptiles

When it comes to animal movies, audiences tend to prefer their protagonists soft and cuddly, and their villains as slithery as possible. It sure is hard out there for a reptile, but films like this weekend’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Out of the Shadows seem eager to stick up for the scaly guys, and that got us thinking about the strange subgenre of films that are all about them.

So, what is the best reptile movie ever? That’s what we’re asking on this week’s installment of The Best Movie Ever. We asked our panel of critics – Crave’s William Bibbiani and Witney Seibold, and Collider’s Brian Formo – to pick one film and defend it as the absolute best example of reptiles on film, and as usual they couldn’t agree on a damned thing.

Find out which movies they picked, and come back next Wednesday for another all-new, highly debatable installment of Crave’s The Best Movie Ever!

William Bibbiani’s Pick: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

New Line Cinema

There is a moment in Steve Barron’s original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie when, while fighting off an army of teenaged ninjas, Michaelangelo screams at the top of his lungs, “God, I LOVE BEING A TURTLE!” In the 26 years that followed, I have never once been so happy that I felt the need to pester an almighty deity with the declaration that I love being a homo sapien. So in other words, reptiles – and specifically turtles – have it better than I do, and this film is our proof.

Sure enough, the first live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is a profoundly underrated motion picture, dramatizing an inherently ludicrous concept with a dash of self-awareness and a heaping helping of sincerity. Brought to life by fantastic costumes by Jim and Brian Henson, the four brothers at the heart of our tale fight bad guys, certainly, but also navigate teenaged angst and rebellion in a believable way. There is a sincerity to the relationships in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that can’t be obscured by the green scales the actors are forced to wear.

Add in some excellent action, a gritty aesthetic that serves to make the story more plausible (as opposed to more stylized), and a solid sense of humor and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles emerges as one of the better superhero movies we’ve ever had. And it’s VERY pro-reptile. It’s hard to find a good pro-reptile movie in general, and I daresay you’d be hard-pressed to find a better one than this.

Witney Seibold’s Pick: Rango (2011)

Paramount Pictures

Unless we’re talking about Wally Gator, or maybe Dino Flintstone, it’s rare that you’ll find fictional reptiles that are also wholly heroic. When it comes to their depiction in film, reptiles are inscrutable at best and eat-monsters at worst. For every friendly animated snake (like in, say, Kung-Fu Panda), there are 100 killer dinosaurs, evil anacondas, and voracious monster crocodiles. And I count friendly dinosaurs from awful kid flicks in that latter category; Theodore Rex will earn no recognition here. 

So when it comes to great movies about reptile protagonists, we have one clear choice: Gore Verbinski’s exhilaratingly unusual 2011 animated film Rango. Rango is, more or less, a Western about a slightly insane chameleon, voiced by Johnny Depp, who is separated from his human owners and who wanders into an old west city called Dirt. Dirt is populated by anthropomorphic animals, and is facing a water crisis that may or may not be orchestrated by corrupt city officials and local outlaws. Rango, with a bit of Quixote about him, elects to pose as a daring gunfighter, unaware that he is incapable of such a role. 

Rango is about acting, about choosing your role in life, and about how heroism can be little more than a choice. But, more importantly, it’s about the weirdness of the world. This was a mainstream animated hit that featured cracks about eating Pop Tarts with Kim Novak in the afterlife. It featured a team of walking trees. And, significantly, it featured an animated cameo from Hunter S. Thompson. This was a weird film for weird little kids, and was most certainly one of the best films of 2011. It’s imaginative, unique, and great. 

Brian Formo’s Pick: Godzilla (2014)

Warner Bros.

Like most boys, reptiles fascinated me. I begged my parents to take me to the Everglades to see the alligators. While on a road trip to a Midwestern family reunion, I saw a billboard for a reptile farm that was 50 miles in the wrong direction. My grandma knew it’d mean a lot to me to stop and so we did. On a houseboat vacation in Arizona, I once kept the boat docked for an extra 20 minutes because I was trying to capture a small lizard I caught. I did catch it, kept him hidden for a few days, and even tried to sneak him onto the airplane.

My earliest full memory is actually spying a Godzilla movie. I don’t know which one. But I was at the day care and supposed to be asleep. I spotted a giant reptile on the TV and I pretended to have my head down, kept watching with one eye above my folded arms. My caretaker, a Seminole woman, could see that I was glued to the TV. She picked me up and put me on her lap, I watched what I now know to be Godzilla trudge through a sand dune, and I held tight to her braids on each side. I was scared but completely in awe of the creature.

A lot of people dislike Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, but for me, it’s one of the best blockbusters ever. People are upset that it takes so long for us to see the giant reptile beast in full. I love it. The whole movie is foreplay. Edwards knows we really want to see the badass mutant lizard. But he fools us by following another mutant creature for most of the film. Prominent characters die off screen. Other monsters wreak havoc. And when Edwards finally pulls away from the big tease and gives us the big monster, it’s immensely pleasing. Godzilla was a major gamble for re-introducing Godzilla, but I greatly admire Edwards’ buildup of tension, anticipation and release. Like the kid scaling rocks, making his family wait, I know that the (big) lizard is worth the wait.

Previously on The Best Movie Ever:

Top Photos: Warner Bros. / Paramount Pictures / New Line Cinema