The Dinosaur Project is a British sci-fi film about a team of explorers who go to the Congo to search for - what else? - dinosaurs. I just happened to stumble across this on Netflix one day, and thought “I’ll check this out.” What Netflix didn’t tell me was that this was a found footage style movie. That would’ve been nice to know. Would’ve spared me the boredom and regret for wasting my time.
Despite the comment above, I don’t absolutely hate this film. It has some amount of talent buried within its sauropod sized flaws (get it? I used dinosaur terminology in my dinosaur movie review. I’m so clever, right? Right?). This did have a considerable amount of effort put into it, but it wasn’t enough and wasn’t used in the right ways.
The first major mistake the filmmakers made- one that brought this film down harder than a dead ceratopsian- was the choice to make it a found footage movie. You know, like Blair Witch or Cloverfield, the style that looks like it’s from the perspective of someone’s camera. I have never been a fan of this style. It’s just shaky-camera all over the place. Also, I find it odd that in every found footage movie, someone always leaves the camera on at the right moments for long enough to develop the plot and each of the characters. How convenient. You think there’d be some instances where they’d be smart and shut the cameras off at some parts, but NOPE. “Don’t mind me, I’ll just record all of the drama on this here camera! Oh, you’re having an emotional breakdown? Let me get a shot of you crying! Oh, you’re going to kill me? Let me get this on film! I totally don’t look like a complete @$$hat doing this!”
The Dinosaur Project is no different. It’s the same thing as Cloverfield and Blair Witch, only with dinosaurs. About halfway through is when the movie starts getting really boring. After that, it felt like it was dragging on forever. I just wanted to see people get eaten! But when creatures do attack in this movie, guess what happens? If you predicted that the camera has a seizure, you would be correct. This technique NEVER works! It is just REALLY annoying! It doesn’t make the scene feel intense, it doesn’t get across any sense of urgency, it doesn’t do jack squat but make me want to turn off the movie. But apparently, filmmakers still do it! To this day, directors do this! Why? It should be outlawed!
Another problem that keeps pushing up the boredom factor is the characters themselves. I barely remember them, mostly because I never cared for them, mostly because they’re not good characters, mostly because idiots, mostly because the writing sucks.
The only thing I really remember was their deaths. The only death I cared for was the one at the end, where the father and mother dinosaurs ate the one guy that for some dumb reason became an antagonist. Firstly, I don’t know why movies like these need a human antagonist- because clearly, the jungle full of prehistoric beasts wasn’t antagonistic enough. Second, I only liked the guy’s death since I was bored and only wanted something dead.
Something else that bothers me is that this movie breaks some the laws of dinosaur movies that were established by Jurassic Park. The biggest offense is killing off a girl character. The blond girl, the only moderately attractive human being in the entire movie- dead within the first half hour or so. In post-Jurassic Park films, girls are not supposed to die in dinosaur movies. Their ovaries guarantee their survival. The Dinosaur Project does not follow this rule.
The last thing wrong with this movie is the lack of T-Rex. Not every dinosaur film needs T-Rex. I know this. But when a movie has it on its main freaking poster, as seen above, wouldn’t you expect maybe a little bit of T-Rex in it? Instead of plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, weird, bat-looking things that I don’t think ever really existed, and… whatever the heck the other ones were. I’m usually pretty good with identifying dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures, but I could not figure out what the little dinosaur was that the characters befriended. But that’s besides the point. There is no T-Rex. The poster lied.
The only thing I liked about the film was the locations they shot in. For the brief moments that the camera is steady, it looks great! So does the CGI for the dinosaurs. But good effects and neat looking environments never completely saved a film before.
FINAL RATING: 15 / 50
STORY: 2 / 5
ACTING: 2 / 5
CHARACTERS: 1 / 5
CGI/VISUALS: 3 / 5
ADVENTURE: 3 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: There was no freaking soundtrack! - 0 / 5
TONE: 2 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 2 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 0 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 0 / 5
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