Director: Jack E. Bell
Year: 2022
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Dinosaurs
Plot:
After surviving the previous game, a woman is coerced into coming back for a new game show where she must get through the night with other fellow survivors to get through the night chased by vicious dinosaurs, and must navigate tricky alliances with the other contestants to get away alive.
Review:
This was a solid and fairly serviceable follow-up with a lot to like about it. One of the better features here is the ability to bring about a new way to get the setup for the game show to get underway which follows up nicely from the original. With the new showrunners trying to drive up ratings again by bringing back former winners to play a new season and compete against each other, the fact that her refusal due to those circumstances only to get dragged into doing so with the way it happens here comes off quite nicely. Not only does this setup play off what she went through before and how she’s handled herself since, but it explains how the other contestants are brought back as well as the different personality she displays compared to the others which is all enough to provide a strong starting point for a sequel like this.
That all provides a solid baseline for the series of encounters here which are fewer in number but still have a cheesy attitude about them. With the creatures shown to be far more vicious and omnipresent from the beginning when we get the clips of them fighting with the other contestants on their proposed installments of the show, it all comes across well enough to get the dinosaurs in focus here. The encounters with the creatures at the beginning of the games that signal the start of the new game include several rather fun showcases with the raptors chasing them around the compound where this takes place has the kind of cheesy and exciting battles with the contestants has some fine work here. The later scenes where the creatures are bigger threats to the group winning since they’re trying to kill each other rather than the creatures and give this enough silly, cheesy encounters to have a lot to like with this one.
There are some slight flaws to be had here that bring it down. One of the biggest drawbacks is a similar issue as the original in that it has way too much going on for its own good. This one tries to make it seem way too dramatic where one of the contestants turns out to be a massive scumbag out for themselves and leaving characters to die simply because he’s trying to be the one to leave the games alive that he’s inserted as a human protagonist instead of the dinosaurs. The mindset is completely valid but it’s just not needed to have scenes where he tricks them or captures the group and tortures them for fun as this all takes the focus away from the more natural drama of the creatures trying to kill them that this forgets about from time to time to deal with these factors. As well as the expected silliness and cheesy CGI for the creatures, these are what bring this one down.
Overview: ***/5
A cheesy and likable genre follow-up, there’s a lot to like here which comes off quite nicely with the original to have a lot to like even though its flaws do strike it down. Those who are fans of this particular style of genre fare or the creative crew will have a lot to like here while most others out there should heed caution with this one.
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