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| Someone skipped arm day. |
Directed by: Joseph J. Lawson
Produced by: Paul Bales, David Michael Latt, Michael Meilander, David Rimawi
Written by: Hank Woon, Jr.
Budget:
Starring: Treat Williams, Ronny Cox, Jillian Rose Reed, Joshua Michael Allen, Max Aria
I swear I didn't know this was an Asylum movie until the first credit popped up.
When a laboratory resurrects dinosaurs and performs genetic experiments on the animals, it's only a matter of time before they get loose and we start following The Lost World story beats.
This is a movie where evil science must push forward to accomplish its goals, no matter how many "setbacks" or "troubles" the processes encounter. As one character says early on, "why start with butterflies and lizards when you can get going with the cool stuff?"
The Good
At certain points the dinosaurs are animatronic and actually look pretty good. The designs are goofy sci-fi schlock, with horns and spikes in random places, but the movements look alright. The unfortunate thing is that the animatronics are only used once or twice after that first scene, but at times they opt instead to use shadows projected on a wall which is at least an artistic choice that seems to have been driven by the realities of their low budget.
Compared to the other Asylum movies I've seen this one feels like its crew put in the most effort. While that isn't saying much considering the general lack of care the company spares for its productions, it stands out, especially when you consider just how dumb Snakes on a Train was. The difference seems most apparent in the quality of the direction, because unlike most others, Age of Dinosaurs actually looks like a movie. The difference is so notable that, with better actors and effects I could see this actually working as a fun B-movie, rather than an attempt to cash in on Jurassic World.
The Bad
It's when the animatronics are replaced by CGI that the dinosaurs start looking like crap. The first shot of the carnotaurus walking around and biting someone's head off looks cheap. The shots of the dinosaur's eyes look really, really cartoony. Of course, this doesn't just apply to the dinosaurs but the environments and setting whenever computers are used to render their holding cells or cloning pods. At one point a bunch of glass shatters towards the screen as a fuzzy mesh. During a chase scene the dinosaur's model is animated faster than it should logically be moving, so it looks like it's sliding along the ground.
One thing that doesn't help the animation is the dinosaur designs themselves. It's fairly obvious that the people who worked on this movie never actually studied dinosaur anatomy, because each one looks like a drawing by someone who thinks dinosaurs are cool without actually knowing what they looked like.
As expected the acting isn't anything to write home about, except for when it's really, really bad. The movie's "kid," Jade, is a stereotypical brat, complete with attached cell phone, college acceptance/rejection subplot, and imitation Jennifer Tilly squeak. The scientists and crew are a group of pretty blonde women who can't seem to forget that they're reading off a script while they aimlessly twiddle with buttons and knobs on a control board. Wheelchair CEO (I can't remember the character's name) does fine as an amoral, big-picture science guy.
The movie outright steals several shots or scenes from the Jurassic Park series, including the classic velociraptor-kitchen scene, even down to the framing. Here is the shot from Age of Dinosaurs. Here is a shot from Jurassic Park. Uh, I mean, surely this movie was a monument of ethical writing and film-making.
During one action scene there's a SWAT team shooting at the big bad dinosaur, and the captions indicate that there should be gunshots...but it looks like they forgot to put in the muzzle flashes and sound effects, because all the actors are doing is shaking their guns and pretending to shoot. Of course, this scene comes immediately before the dinosaur takes down a CGI helicopter, so maybe their budget could only afford either gunshots or helicopters.
I don't know whether Netflix provides its own closed captioning or if it used the movie's native CC tracks, but whoever created it should be embarrassed. There were numerous typos, inaccuracies, and missing words which really shouldn't happen in this day and age.
The Rest
Sometimes I wonder why we can't get a good dinosaur movie. I don't mean that as a joke, despite how silly it might be. The original Jurassic Park is great, but I can't really think of any other high-profile, well-received dinosaur movie. I might just start writing a treatment for Jurassic Continent...
Should You Watch It?
Honestly...this might be worth your time. As the movie goes on it gets goofier and goofier, hitting critical mass around the one hour mark. Special scenes of note include the "No joke!" dinosaur text, the exploding elevator, and a spinosaurus somehow chilling on top of a huge skyscraper. There is enough here that you might be able to overlook some of the Asylum crap.
Extra
The Asylum has had some success recently making original trash like Sharknado, which at least shows they are self-aware enough to understand their place in the current pop culture landscape. With this under their belt I wonder whether the Asylum couldn't make some sort of respectable name of themselves, in the same vein as Troma or Cannon, by abandoning their mockbusters altogether and producing low-budget camp fluff. While 2015 showed no sign that they were going to stop making crap, Sharknado 4 is planned for release sometime in 2016, so if that's successful maybe the studio can continue branching out.
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