Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile

Based on Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, one of the Lyle Crocodile book series written by the late Bernard Waber this film with songs from the team behind The Greatest Showman, is closer in spirit to the latter than the former. As it leans towards set piece musical numbers, rather than a straight adaptation of the stories.

Opening with a terrible singing and magic act Hector P Valenti (Javier Bardem) who after getting canned again from a high-profile talent contest finds himself in pet shop where he discovers a singing baby crocodile. The next we see is the pair in Hector’s Brownstone building attic practising their act only for Lyle (voiced by Shawn Mendes) to fail at the first with a bout of stage fright in front of a capacity crowd. With financial problems building up and Lyle growing, Hector leaves him to go out on the road.

Moving into the house the Primm family can’t believe their luck: its huge. Son Josh (Winslow Fegley) has a whole floor to himself. Being on the angsty side he has the usual problems of newcomers to a big city and settling into a new school. That is until he discovers and befriends Lyle, followed by mum (Constance Wu) and dad (Scoot McNairy) after their statutory bouts of terror at finding a huge crocodile living in their loft.

Hector returns and the viewer is now coasting to a predicable ending. There’s some stuff about a nasty building manager, zoos and leases though none of the that gets in the way as it heads off to a predictable ending.

Adapted by Will Davies and directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, it doesn’t bear any sort of close examination as when Hector first introduces a young Lyle to an audience there doesn’t seem to be much of a ripple that it’s a crocodile. There’s more of reaction when he doesn’t sing. This is about accepting the premise quickly and moving with it.

That said, this isn’t aimed at my age group yet I found it all very enjoyable, very colourful, with songs that are big and bright, with definite singalong appeal. It also moves along at a steady pace, and it’s quite funny in parts.

In keeping with the tone of the books, there’s less here for adults than recent films of this type, that try to slip in something to keep older viewer’s interest. Although it is formulaic, boredom shouldn’t be a problem, for any age group, as it’s not overly long, the main characters are generally likeable, the pedantic nasty neighbour in Mr Grumps (Brett Gelman) is good fun and he has a fluffball of a cat called Loretta.