Dino Dicember #30: Jurassic Predator (2018)

Yes, “Predator”, singular, this has nothing to do with Extinction: Jurassic Predators (plural), which was done because The Dinosaur Project/The Lost Dinosaurs did ok in review and made some money, so we’re gonna make another found footage dinosaur movie, with good practical effects and worse in every other aspect.

But i already reviewed that. Just yesterday.

I have to preface i was gonna review Jurassic Thunder (the one head mounted machine guns on a T-Rex) for this Dino Dicember slot, but i relented, because i felt nothing i could say will matter to a movie built on the foundation of the Dr. Evil meme, and doubles downs on its putrid shit factor, amplified and self-excusing itself due to the narrative frame of 80’s comic book and action flicks.

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Dino Dicember #29: Extinction: Jurassic Predators (2014)

I often joke or belittle the alternative titles these movie get for home video releases, but this time i feel the “Jurassic Predators” subtitle helps, since now people are gonna think more of the 2018 Netflix produced movie, not this 2014 release also titled “Extinction”. Then again, you might find this one under the other alternative title of “Jurassic Island”.

And while looking at the premise, i had to do a double take, like, didn’t i already review a movie with a nearly identical plot? And i kinda did, since it’s basically The Lost Dinosaurs/The Dinosaur Project, with a research team led by a professor or academic figure going into a jungle to protect endangered and vulnerable species, but after some kerfuffle the guides run away, the group eventually stumbles upon dinosaurs, and has to survive the unexpected peril.

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Dino Dicember #27: Jurassic City (2015)

From the director of Silent Night, Zombie Night, and Terror Birds (also editor for many films, including Sand Sharks, obviously), we have yet another dino flick where Los Angeles is attacked by dinosaurs… not a single giant dinosaur, because people that write the synopses for these movie (on Wikipedia and/or IMDB, depends) don’t actually watch them most of the time, or they do watch them drunk and try to piece together the plot later, because there isn’t a T-rex (or equivalent) rampaging alone through LA. Yes, the DVD cover has it, but that’s false advertising.

In this occasion the dinos didn’t arrive via a Stargate-style time portal, but were created in a lab and escaped a secret facility manned by a shadowy government squad, and due to an incident they bring an armored van (containing 3 Monolophosauruses, in the same genus as the T-Rex but acting as this movie’s raptors equivalent) inside a nearby prison, where they just brought a serial killer… and a trio of college girls temporarly detained (having been busted the night before at an obnoxious party). As the dinosaurs break free and kill most guards and soldiers, the girls and the serial killer and are now forced to escape deeper into the prison, bedgrudgingly having to cooperate.

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Dino Dicember #26: Aztec Rex / Tyrannosaurus Azteca (2007)

Thunder, thunder, thunder rex!

Actually, not quite, but i wonder why not also give the “rexes” magical elemental powers (since the Aztecs call them “Thunder lizards” in the movie itself), if we can stretch the imagination to have a movie like this, set in the 16^th centhury about a group of conquistadores going to Mexico in order to search for treasure and colonialize the “savages” while they’re at it, but end up captured by the tribes, whom plan to sacrifice them to their sacred gods, T-Rexes.

I mean, i do trust in Godzilla, but ….

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Dino Dicember #25: Turok: Son Of Stone (2008)

Taking some time to spotlight this 12 years old, fairly forgotten direct-to-video animated movie about the most popular Native American dinosaur-slaying character in videogame, Turok (yes you are he).

Which is fitting, since the games themselves were based on the Turok comics, the first one titled “Turok Son Of Stone”, but before going any further, i have to say i’m not exactly that familiar with Turok in general, and what little i know comes from the first Turok videogame, and some cultural osmosis. I didn’t grow up playing Turok games on the N64, when i got my very first console the series was already quite slumming as Akklaim itself was inching ever closer to bankruptcy.

This was released alongside the 2008’s reboot simply called “Turok”… which didn’t help in breathing some life back in the series, so the planned sequel to that was scrapped and the series layed dormant until Turok: Escape From Lost Valley released in 2019.

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Dino Dicember #24: Poseidon Rex (2013)

Yes, the ever elusive Water-Dragon type of T-Rex, because nowadays you could make fake monster movie poster art with Pokemons as a joke, and realize someone did it for real already, beat you to it years ago. And if someone had to do it, might as well be the director of cult films like Commando, Armed And Dangerous, and Class of 1984, Mark. L. Lester himself, as he eventually went back to doing B-movies for TV or the home video market after the “Hollywood years”.

Because, really, the sharks enjoyed preying on B-movie beaches for decades, it’s time to move out and let dinosaurs do it for a change. At least in some of the cover art, in this specific case it does happen, but often with movies like this the posters promise more than what the movies themselves can actually deliver.

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Dino Dicember #23: My Pet Dinosaur (2017)

You may argue that most of the crappy dinosaur movies featured in Dino Dicember are “puerile excuses for entertaiment” or some crap like that, so you know what, let’s actually review a dinosaur movie made for kids or intended as a “family picture”. No, not the Land Before Time series (yes, it’s a series). No, not “We’re Back! A Dinosaur Story!” No, there’s not a live-action movie adaptation of Cadillac & Dinousars.. yet, you never fuckin know with the nostalgia market.

Because i’m stupid, we’re gonna do something less known and far more recent, the austrialian My Pet Dinosaur, directed, written and produced by Matt Drummond, who previously directed Dinosaur Island (2014), and cured visual effects for TV documentaries and TV movies like Attack Of The Sabretooth.

Never heard of them either, so no harm no foul.

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Dino Dicember #22: Anonymous Rex (2004)

Ah yes, the “Jurassic Park X Blade Runner” crossover you never asked for but was actually made, not so much to chomp on a Ridley Scott movie released 22 years priors (at the time), but as to put out something since the TV series based on Casual Rex, the prequel to the novel of Anymous Rex (both written by Enry Garcia, who also wrote a sequel book, Hot N Sweaty Rex, and Repo Men), and – aactually serves as the base for this movie, despite being titled after the first novel.

Yes, they basically reworked the unproduced work for the Casual Rex TV series as a 2 hour movie… not called “Casual Rex”, but “Anonymous Rex”. I guess because it’s a more catchy title. Confused yet? Hope not, but still, how many dino-noir films are out there? I wouldn’t exactly consider Theodore Rex as noir, myself.

I have to add this one is quite hard to even see, it’s on Amazon Prime Video… in the US, and i draw the line at using a VPN or registering to suspicious site for downloads. So i had to watch it on Youtube, in parts, hardsubbed in chinese in an embarassing resolution. I’m not gonna use screenshots from that, for obvious reasons.

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Dino Dicember #21: Tammy And The T-Rex (1994)

As pointed out in the Super Mario Bros The Movie review, the 90s had a fascination with anything dinosaur related, and this is definitely another testament to that, a more obscure – not that obscure – comedy horror film that’s still kinda unique, and became a cult sensation, enough to warrant a 2019 uncut, restored to 4K re-release on Blu-Ray.. only in the U.S. Yeah, there’s no cheap UK DVD release for this one, and apparently the italian VHS version is rare as hell… and i draw the line at collecting VHS tapes. I’m sorry, i have to draw the line somewhere, for my own sake.

And yes, that title screen is correct, since the uncut edition has the movie’s original title, “Tanny and the Teenage T-Rex”. Regardless of what title you see, it’s both explicit and incredibly vague, as in, would you expect a teen drama that turns into horror, with a mad scientist transplating the brain of Tammy’s deceased boyfriend into a robot dinosaur, whom then goes around killing Tammy’s jealous ex-boyfriend and his thugs, as they are responsable for his death? No you wouldn’t.

And i gotta admit, i’ve never heard a plot like this.

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Dino Dicember #19: Super Mario Bros The Movie (1993)

I could have waited until that animated Super Mario movie Nintendo commissioned Illumination (urgh) released… but sure as shit it isn’t coming out this year (not like it was gonna, it was slated for a 2022 release before the COVID-19 pandemic anyway), and i’m doing Dino Dicember… well, in Dicember, so it’s a pretty good “excuse” for me to watch and review the infamous Super Mario Bros live-action movie. And i do enjoy the challenge, it’s not like it’s this obscure adaptation nobody on the internet talked about, but let’s give the movie a fair shake with almost 2 decades of hindsight.

And yes, it totally counts, since it’s about a dinosaur dimension that originated from the meteor that hit Earth 65 millions years ago, which actually created two parallel dimensions of Earth, one inhabited by reptile people descending from dinosaurs, and ours of “human people” descending from primates. As the resources have dried up on the “dino end”, the leader of the dino-people, Koopa, sends minions in our dimension to search for a fragment of the meteor that split the dimensions to begin with, so he can unite the two and rule them under his scaly thumb.

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