To say i didn’t like the first Dinosaur Hotel is being nice, but that won’t change the fact it had some of the worst CG i’ve seen in a while, even for modern cheap low budget dinosaur flicks the effects were plainly pathetic, the premise old and already done better years before.
But since this is a modern low budget dino flick from the UK (it’s another Jagged Edge Production thingie, the same company backing the Winnie The Pooh slasher films, BTW), a sequel was bound to happen… and at least it happened fast, i guess, since only 1 year later, Dinosaur Hotel 2 hit the internet and general VOD services in some regions, and this year they dropped another sequel with Dinosaur Hotel 3. At least they keep the titling consistent and simple.
Curiously, if a movie like this would have been released in the 90s, it would have done the usual “sequel in name only” shuffle we’ve discussed countless times before, but in this case we’re doing actual sequels, for best or worst, even if it doesn’t quite matter, as we’re still doing the same idea, again, with people doing a survival game in a place full of dinosaurs, with the jackpot for the lone survivor being ONE MIL-oh, wait 10 MILLION DOLLARS, gotta outbid Dr. Evil.
The variation is that this time around we’re doing a “survivors elimination round”, so the surviving/winning person from the first movie, Sienna, reluctant but forced back into the fray against other people (as they kidnap her kids), which implies many other rounds of “dino royale” having taken place elsewhere, conveniently never mentioned before, but whatever, fine.
On the upside, at least this time around they don’t pull the “padding the runtime with 10 mins of credits”, the movie does actually end at the 72 minutes mark, roughly,
I would be saying that this one it’s at least a bit better in terms of presentation and character development, but then again the dinos still don’t seem to inhabit the same layer of existence as the humans, and it so cheap it hurts, what else can you call a movie that decides its a good idea to use Alexa devices to read out exposition instead of an actual actor? Or have the main actress’ real life kids return in the same character role, now aged but still not knowing how to act?
Then again, i should be asking how the hell this “Dinosaur Hotel” tv show is shown apparently without a HBO subscription or premium cable TV shit, it’s apparently a national thing everyone can tune in to, i know because i feel the writer channeled some frustrations with the production as the sleazy announcer is basically almost kicked out of his own show by the new people in charge and lament the drop in interest and tv share, it feels more like a thinly veiled venting out at the producers and/or production company itself, wouldn’t rule out that out, but it does factor into the plot a bit, not making for some funny bits but at least not completely random.
The dinos look a smidge better and some of the actors try (especially Chrissie Wunna as the protagonist Sienna), the location of the “battle dino royale” is thankfully not the same fuckin “hotel” of the first film, some abandoned complex still somewhere in the British burbs, but the multiple contestants and the sleazy presenter do try to make this one more enjoyable once it finally starts.
Yes the other characters are mostly fuckin awful, them mostly stickin around to survive the dinos is stupid enough, the acting is mostly curiously fierce in how awful it is, and- to be honest, watching Dinosaur Hotel 2 still feel like pulling teeth, like the first one did, not gonna lie, just a bit less painful to sit through, still less pathetic CG for dinos, a bit more going on with the plot, but still amounting to a LOT tedium to sit through, almost indigestible even at just 72 minutes.
It’s a small improvement over the first one, that much is still undeniable, but it’s barely appreciable, i still don’t recommend it even to dinosaur buffs, and it has an open ending leading to Dinosaur Hotel 3, so see ya tomorrow for the review of that. Sigh.
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