Director: Mike Hermosa
Year: 2024
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Dinosaur; Horror/Comedy
Plot:
In the middle of a special project, a group of scientists is dismayed when the subject of their experiments in the form of a special invisible dinosaur escapes and runs wild in a local town, forcing a series of wild locals to team together to stop the creature’s bloodsoaked rampage.
Review:
This was a fairly fun if problematic feature. One of the bigger features here is the general setup that provides the kind of wild genre fare it feels quite engaged to provide. The idea of the dinosaur getting loose during the series of tests being conducted by a government agency trying to determine the effectiveness of such a weapon by the military and the ensuing rampage that occurs afterward makes for a solid enough starting point. It gets to the point about what the creature is, how intelligent it actually is, and how it gets free while also managing to give a great starting point for introducing the wild and wacky series of characters in the town where we get to meet the heroes at the Theme Park, the ex-flame, and the crazy local that believes their story who band together to use their skills to track the creature down. This gives the film a strong and intriguing starting point with a couple of great pieces to start the investigation into the creature.
The second half here, featuring the series of encounters and confrontations with the creature and the crew trying to stop it, manages to bring together a lot of fun aspects. Going with some outright silly aspects involving the goofy tracking techniques, slapstick humor involving the personalities on display conflicting with each other, and a slew of random characters introduced not just to provide some laughs with their one-liners but their eventual death after encountering the creature, there’s plenty of fun throughout here. The graphic kills being accomplished with stand-out sequences feature a lot to like, which is exactly the same as the effects used to bring the creature to life and interact with the environment to play up its invisible status, which all come together with the high-energy action on display here to make for a lot to like overall.
There are some big problems here that hold it back. The main issue here is the fact that this one is such an ungodly length for the type of material present that it threatens to wear out its welcome rather early. There’s little reason why this should be more than ninety minutes much less approach two hours the way this does, especially with the amount of characters or side tangents this goes on simply to get a laugh as that comes at the expense of dragging this one out far longer. Excessively going for the joke rather than trying to present the storyline more straightforwardly with so many scenes like the opening escape from the lab, the gags at the Theme Park, or the implications of the sheriff about what’s really going on which all serve their appropriate laughs but just don’t need to be as indulgent as they are.
The other factor to be had with this one is the goofy premise never going for the kind of over-the-top wildness it seems set up to employ. The idea of the creature being invisible is a great gimmick that gets a lot of fun moments to shine but it soon grows so weary that you can’t see the creature in full. Not knowing what it looks like or where the creature is comes off like a massive cheat to simply put it anywhere they want and the satisfaction of trying to make the scenes make sense is lost without the ability to tell what’s going on that it happens simply because of the appearance of the creature kept under wraps for the gimmick to play out. It’s somewhat underwhelming to keep getting denied and everything playing out the way it does is the main cause of that, holding this one back for what it is.
Overview: ***.5/5
A generally solid if somewhat underwhelming genre effort, this one comes off rather nicely in some regards but is hampered from going higher than it is by those drawbacks. Viewers who are more in line with the tone of the film presented, don’t mind those issues, or are curious about it will have a lot to like while most others turned off by those factors should heed caution.
Comments
Post a Comment