Director: Dominic Ellis
Year: 2022
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Dinosaurs
Plot:
Worried about her missing parents, a woman gathers a team of friends to go looking for them once they learn of their trek to a remote island looking for signs of prehistoric life, and once they arrive there are confronted by a slew of still-living dinosaurs forcing them to survive and get off the island alive.
Review:
Overall, this was a solid enough genre effort. What works nicely here is the films’ adventure film setup involving the quest to find her missing father and the mystery surrounding the island they’re going to visit. With the general setup involving the daughter arriving to find their disappearance and the quest to gather a crew that will head out onto the island in search of them, the early parts here aren’t that bad at getting the group onto the island in the first place. Featuring the groups’ struggles to adapt to the island once they arrive, including the parasite that infects the one member turning him into a possessed killer and the group traversing the jungle on the search for the missing parents while conducting a slew of tests about the wildlife to be found there gives this a strong enough start.
Likewise, the ensuing series of dinosaur attacks that emerge once they arrive here is cheesy enough to be quite fun. The opening ambush on the party on the island with no context for anything gives this a strong starting point to the fun, while the initial encounters revolve around the zombie-like attacks which are rather fun with the sudden changes taking effect. The various dino attacks, including the Rex ambush in the middle of the woods, the Pterodactyl appearing out of nowhere to swarm a victim, and the finale involving the escape to the boat away from the dinosaur hunting them on the beach are just cheesy enough to make for a fun time. These here manage to hold this up over its flaws.
There are several factors that hold this one back. The main drawback to this one is the surprising lack of intelligence on behalf of these people who are in the middle of everything. The main culprit here is not listening to authority and sticking around to either get stuck in the middle of the jungle involving killer leeches that turned you into a ravenous zombie. There’s ample evidence to suggest getting away from the area is a proper way to about surviving the situation yet they always want to return to wrecked campsites in order to retrieve information left behind or to attempt contact with individuals that are clearly infected and possessed. There’s little surprise why they continually get into trouble here with the kind of decision-making featured here.
The last factor here that holds it back is the seemingly obvious and rather unrealistic special effects work that plays out for the dinosaurs. They’re anatomically weird in having far too wide a stance or other bizarre proportions that aren’t in any way realistic or believable but also just feature just about every shot of them features the creature doing something unnatural or bizarre. Either they’re performing unusual movements in order to keep the entire figure in the frame when it never could’ve bent into that position or appearing to change size in the screen which comes complete with all the hallmarks of the typical underwhelming CGI usually found in this style. Otherwise, this one isn’t that bad.
Overview: **.5/5
A fun and enjoyable cheesy creature feature that manages to work despite some rather unfortunate flaws, overall this one has a lot to like which makes this one quite watchable even with these flaws bringing it down. Give this a look mainly if you’re a fan of these kinds of creature features or the creative crew involved while most others should heed caution with this one.
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