The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Dinosaurs refers to any of an extinct species of reptiles. Dinosaurs emerged on the Earth in the prehistoric past some 230-240 billion years ago and were killed off 64 million years ago.
There has been a great fascination with dinosaurs since the days of silent cinema. They are frequently found in Films About Lost Worlds – some undiscovered pocket of the world where prehistoric life still lives. There is also the recurrent popularity of anthropologically absurd prehistoric adventures where cavemen are seen fighting dinosaurs.
The 1950s gave us the atomically revived dinosaurs beginning with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953). The genre underwent a revival during the 1990s with the massive success of Jurassic Park (1993) and its revival of dinosaurs by genetic-engineering and their bringing to life with CGI effects.
There have also been a variety of animated and children’s dinosaur films or else comedy takes such as the various incarnations of The Flintstones. There are even a number of Alternate History Films where the dinosaurs have not died off.
Luc Besson adapts a French comic-book – sort of a female version of Tintin – with uneven but generally amiable regard. The result is somewhere between an Indiana Jones adventure and the quirkness of an Amelie
From prolific B-budget director Fred Olen Ray, this is a softcore parody of the Indiana Jones films
Terrence Malick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, maybe the best work yet about the great Lost American Childhood yet – a film that doesn’t seem to be about anything but has far more to say than almost all other multiplex films
A killer shark film concerning a prehistoric megalodon prowling the waters of a lake. This once had the distinction of being the lowest rated film on the IMDB
Found Footage film as survivors from a commercial airliner that has crashed on a top secret government test site find themselves hunted by mysterious creatures
A Japanese-made variant on the dream incursion theme of Inception. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa is noted for his bafflingly surrealistic horror films but in working in a genre like science-fiction that requires an implied explainability, he makes a far less interesting film
A modestly effective Jurassic Park copy from The Asylum with genetically-revived dinosaurs loose in L.A. and featuring better than usual effects
Walking With Dinosaurs was an amazing documentary series that recreated prehistoric life with CGI animation. By contrast. the film spinoff is a cutsie animated film with talking dinosaurs. It is a film that is killed by the decision to let the dinosaurs talk with smartass one-liners and contemporary in-jokes
As formula monster movies go, this stands out from the rest – it takes itself seriously, has a better budget than usual, which allows some luxurious location shooting in Belize, and a better standard of effects
The third entry in a franchise that seems to be stretching to find anything to do with its premise beyond the first film. Everyone involved seems to have only turned up to collect a paycheque and be going through the motions in a show that entirely coasts by solely on your familiarity with the characters
Are there any new creative directions that Michael Bay feels he he has to explore for a fourth Transformers film? All the Transformers beating the crap out of each other and copious mass destruction has become hard to tell one of the films from each other
Pixar have never been the same since they slipped into the easy familiarity of sequelitis. This is essentially a boy and his dog story but played out with a dinosaur and a caveboy, but also an alternate history tale
Despite the disappointment that it is not a Western but set modern-day. This enlivens a formula plot quite well and provides dinosaur effects that range between the surprisingly good and the occasionally ropy
After two ho-hum sequels, this finally delivers a solid follow-up to Jurassic Park. Rather than more scenes with dinosaurs chasing people, this comes with some fascinating ideas about seeing the park in operation
The incomprehensibly manic antics of the Minions have a cuteness appeal that has overspilled the Despicable Me films and seemed like it is in danger of taking over pop culture in the last couple of years; here they get a film all to themselves with amiably lightweight results
I hate the Ice Age films and their tediously extruded adventures. The opening sequence here and its ignorance of even basic science is the most inane thing in the entire series
The Asylum offer up their own mockbuster copy of the Jurassic World films, an amiable children’s film where a young boy hatches a dinosaur egg he finds
The fifth of Michael Bay’s Transformers films. This comes with more of an outright comedy focus than any of the other films where Bay seems to be second-guessing his critics and spoofing his own peccadilloes in quote marks, only to produce the silliest entry in the series yet
Fifth of the Jurassic Park films. Industrial Light and Magic do their usual excellent job but this time the film is just recycling the same thing as before with minimal change
A mockbuster from The Asylum that was designed to capitalise on the release of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, this is a low-budget CGI dinosaur film that is slightly better than most
Inspired by an autoccorrect error, this is deliberately ridiculous film about a priest who transforms into a dinosaur to fight evil, A film made with a full awareness of its own absurdities where the ineptitude of the shoestring effects adds to the charm.
Rather good British-made low-budget take on Jurassic Park, which conducts its variation with an undeniable sense of humour. One of the better films from low-budget director Andrew Jones
Sequel to the hit Korean film Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds about a journey of redemption through the afterlife. This is a much better polished effort than its predecessor
The sixth of the Sharknado films, this has the usual crew fighting sharknados throughout history. With this comes the recognition there is nowhere more ridiculous and over-the-top for the series to go
Timo Vuorensola’s follow-up to Iron Sky. It is hard to believe that a film with a premise that combines Nazis on the Moon with alien lizard people from the hollow core of the Earth could go wrong
A surprisingly good animated film about the relationship between a caveman and a dinosaur, all without a line of dialogue. From the director of the Hotel Transylvania films
Sequel to The Lego Movie. This time the idea of the Lego universe, the crossovers and fourth-wall breaking gags are not as fresh but this still gets good mileage out of them
Film from The Asylum about dinosaurs hunting mercenaries. Essentially Jurassic Park that takes place in a warehouse
This gets you watching with its deliberately ridiculous title but once you do, you soon wish you hadn’t. Winner of this site’s Worst Film of 2021.
One of fantastic cinema’s great titles bouts is a spectacular effects show. At the same time, it also has one of the single most ridiculous script I have ever come across in the entire time I have been running this site
A head-scratching oddity from the people behind Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey with people enter in a reality tv show where they are hunted by dinosaurs within the confines of a hotel
This was the sixth film in the Jurassic Park/World franchise and offers very much a return to the familiar. It at least also shakes several familiar things up
This seemed to have a lot of promise in its set-up of Adam Driver crashlanded in Earth’s prehistoric past fighting off dinosaurs
This tries to go one up on Sharknado and offers a tornado made up of assorted animals and prehistoric life. A completely ridiculous film from prolific British producer Scott Jeffrey
The sequel to the Jason Statham starring killer shark film, bigger and more over the top than before. The surprise is seeing cult director Ben Wheatley turning to making a big, dumb film
Another killer shark survival piece with a family trapped aboard an abandoned oil rig under attack by a megalodon shark that may be the embodiment of an Aztec god
The animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse proved an unexpected success. This sequel builds on that ups the artistic quality of the original to something quite extraordinary
A follow-up to Godzilla vs Kong, this tries to offer more of the same but suffers another ridiculous script. This ended up being overshadowed by the acclaim that the Japanese-made Godzilla: Minus One received
A unique experimental film from Robert Zemeckis where the camera sits in a single spot in a room and tells is story, covers across history from the dinosaurs to the present day. Based on an acclaimed graphic novel
The third and final part of the adaptation of DC Comics’ classic title Crisis on Infinite Earths featuring an epic battle to prevent the destruction of the multiverse
Essentially Platoon meets Jurassic Park. A surprisingly watchable film that places a unit of soldiers in the midst of the Vietnam War up against dinosaurs where things get bloody and ferocious
The seventh of the Jurassic Park/World films, this receives a creative shot in the arm from Gareth Edwards, director of Monsters and The Creator
Sequel to the animated The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was the second highest grossing film of 2023. From the people behind the Despicable Me films, this exists as little more than eye candy for five-year-olds