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.
Italian cheapie that has become regarded as a bad movie classic. This starts out as a Conan the Barbarian ripoff before, in a twist lifted from Teenage Caveman, we learn we are in a post-apocalyptic future
Likeable puppet animated film about a time-travelling boy and his monkey companion
After the success of their earlier caveman vs stop-motion animated dinosaurs epic One Million Years B.C., Hammer made several other prehistoric films, including this effort that purportedly had a script by an uncredited J.G. Ballard
Juvenile animated film from Amblin Entertainment concerning dinosaurs whose intelligence is raised to human level and they are let loose in the present-day
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
Roger Corman had a good deal of success in the 1960s by buying up footage from Soviet SF films, shooting English language inserts and reissuing them. Bar a handful of scenes with some Hollywood actors, this is almost the whole of the Russian film Storm Planet
Another Roger Corman film made up out of footage recycled from Russian SF films and pseudnonymously directed by a young Peter Bogdanovich in a rather silly plot about astronauts encountering dinosaur-worshipping women on Venus
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.
Among the 1950s/60s spate of Jules Verne films, this was an adaptation of one of Vernr’s lesser-known works Hector Servadac/Off on a Comet. That said, all the but the notion of people swept up on a comet is thrown out and the rest played as a prehistoric lost world adventure
Ray Harryhausen film featuring cowboys roping dinosaurs. The plot rehashes King Kong but with a dinosaur instead of an ape however it is Harryhausen’s amazing stop-motion animation effects that make the film watchable
Routine B-budget lost world fantasy with a group of explorers stranded on an island filled with dinosaurs
This comes with an intriguingly original concept – that Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes during his conquest of Mexico came up against dinosaurs
Animated adaption of the comic-book about a Native American warrior stranded in a prehistoric lost world
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
Film from The Asylum about dinosaurs hunting mercenaries. Essentially Jurassic Park that takes place in a warehouse
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
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
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
Disastrous flop that tries to do a Lethal Weapon buddy cop film by way of Jurassic Park and gives us a film about a cop with a dinosaur partner!
The fifteenth Godzilla film, the last of the classic series, featuring a return of Mechagodzilla from the previous film. Original director Ishiro Honda returns to the series and reclaims it from the juvenile focus it had taken over the last few films to make the best entry of the 1970s
Roger Corman film that sets out to exploit the teenage themed fad of the late 1950s, offering up a caveman drama that comes with a surprise SF twist
One of the films that came out in the aftermath of Jurassic Park, notable only for the absurdity of its premise wherein teen Paul Walker’s brain is transplanted into an animatronic dinosaur body and he struggles to reconnect with girlfriend Denise Richards
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
The first film to be adapted from a videogame and inauspiciously one of the worst. This is a film made on a decent budget that seems to have set out to be as stupid and brainless as possible
Modestly effective Soviet SF film about an expedition to Venus where the cosmonauts encounter a wild and colourful planet of plants and prehistoric wildlife
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
Adaptation of the classic Ray Bradbury time travel story is overblown as a ridiculous big-budget film filled with bad science where the original point of the story disappears in a script that makes no sense
The 1933 King Kong is a landmark classic Yhis sequel was quickly produced soon after its success,. While the original created a monster movie fairytale, this plays everything for maximum cuteness – it is essentially King Kong mounted as a children’s film
Superlative film that recreates an imagined world of 1930s retro sf filled with flyer heroes, giant robots and stunning Art Deco designs.
This seemed to have a lot of promise in its set-up of Adam Driver crashlanded in Earth’s prehistoric past fighting off dinosaurs
A mockbuster take on Sherlock Holmes from The Asylum released the same time as the Guy Ritchie-Robert Downey Jr film. Ben Syder makes for a neurotically subdued Holmes but the film takes a leap off into demented Steampunk territory to emerge as one of The Asylum’s better offerings
John Barrowman fights a giant prehistoric shark in a film that gained a certain reputation as a Bad Movie
Incredibly shabbily made Danish copy of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms about a dinosaur revived in Copenhagen
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 spectacularly terrible film. Designed to exploit the 1976 remake, this offers up a sex-reversed parody of King Kong – only the Kong producers didn’t see that way and sued to stop the film being released. Robin Askwith, the star of the softcore Confessions films, engages in a romance with a female Kong amid excruciating puns
Reasonable low-budget revived dinosaur film with not bad CGI effects and an often witty, genre savvy script
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
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
The third and probably the best of the children’s dinosaur films from Charles Band where the pitiful effects are at least compensated for by an eccentric sense of humour
The second and worst of Albert and Charles Band’s dinosaur films made for children, this suffers from the most pitiful and immobile effects of any film of the era
In the aftermath of the success of Jurassic Park, Albert and Charles Band quickly responded with this children’s dinosaur film that contains some of the most pitiful effects in any film of this era
Laughable prehistoric drama about cave women searching for mates – too cheap to afford stop-motion animated dinosaurs and filled with ridiculous dialogue howlers
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
Modest effort featuring some stop-motion animated dinosaur effects that are reasonably accomplished for the pre-CGI era. On the other hand, it seems a professionally-made amateur production designed to highlight effects and with not much beyond that
The third in the trilogy of Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations with Doug McClure. This has much imagination despite the special effects often not being up to the task
Cult stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen made this classic caveman vs dinosaurs film in collaboration with Hammer Films. The work that brought Raquel Welch to prominence as an actress
Classic caveman vs dinosaurs prehistoric drama later to be remade as the more famous version with Raquel Welch. This plays as fairly creaky today but gains an undeniable vividness with the raw ferocity of its dinosaur scenes (played by optically enlarged lizards)
A lost Edward D. Wood Jr film. Clearly made as a parody on the hit Raquel Welch-starring One Million Years B.C., this is adult work depicting the sex lives of cave people
An Asylum mockbuster released at the same time as Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 B.C., this involves time travel mission into the prehistoric past that accidentally brings a dinosaur back to the present
I have raved elsewhere about Czech director Karel Zeman and his amazing blends of live-action and animation. This, his adaptation of a lesser-known Jules Verne work, is not quite up there with his earlier films but is an enjoyably colourful knockabout adventure
Despite one of the great exploitation titles of all time, this bikini clad babes vs dinosaurs after the apocalypse effort lacks the cheerful cynicism of other Troma films and is just cheap, dull and unwatchable on almost every level
Popular family hit with Ben Stiller as a night watchman at New York’s Museum of Natural History who discovers that the exhibits come to life at night. More a cute idea than a full film, there is some fun to the characters and 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
Sequel to the Ben Stiller hit offers more of the same with a bigger museum and more exhibits come to life but little else
Disney film about a group of teens who find that heart of a UFO that opens up a time warp at their high school
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 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
A copycat of King Kong made on a budget of about $1.98 and featuring some pitiful giant ape effects
The Asylum’s first venture into the gonzo shark movie that would spin off a series of sequels and culminate in the Sharknado phenomenon. Despite one of the great attention grabbing titles of all time, this is an unmemorable affair
The first sequel to The Asylum’s Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and marginally a better film. This is less sparing with the cheap effects, while in every other regard it plants tongue-in-cheek and tries to make a virtue out of the sheer ridiculousness of the action
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
One of the more enjoyable efforts from the mid-2000s dead zone where Disney animation with filled with ideas that left-you scratching your head, this quickly gets demented and emerges like The Jetsons colliding with The Royal Tenenbaums
The first sequel to the massive success of Jurassic Park where Steven Spielberg returns to direct with a script that seems a mishmash of loose ends that only weakly rehashes the original
A TV mini-series adaptation of the Arthur Conan Doyle lost world story, this has been produced by the BBC as a glorious period adventure with CGI dinosaurs
Based on an Arthur Conan Doyle novel and featuring stop-motion animated dinosaurs from King Kong creator Willis O’Brien, this was the quintessential lost world film
Low-budget film with scientists in search of a downed rocket who encounter a prehistoric lost world of dinosaurs on an island plateau
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
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
A team of explorers find a humid world at the Arctic where dinosaurs and cavemen still roam. The men in rubber suit effects are adequate, although the film itself is on the slow side
A 1950s B movie where a US Navy team discovers a prehistoric lost world in the Antarctic where dinosaurs from prehistory still roam. This unfortunately befalls shoddy effects
A low-budget modernised version of the Edgar Rice Burroughs book about a group ending up on a lost island where dinosaurs still roam. Slightly better than usual for The Asylum
The first in a trilogy of prehistoric lost world adventures based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels, all starring Doug McClure. Despite variable effects, this is a well-made adventure with a strong script
Big screen revival of the children’s lost world tv series that is now a loud and excruciating Will Ferrell vehicle that reduces the original into lowbrow farce. A majorly unfunny bomb on every level
The fifth of The Land Before Time animated films about talking dinosaurs, all having been made for very young children
The fourth of The Land Before Time animated films about talking dinosaurs, having been made for very young children
Third of The Land Before Time animated films about talking dinosaurs, made for very young children
Likeable but lightweight talking dinosaur film. This aims to be a prehistoric Bambi but never quite finds the depth. A large number of video-released sequels followed
Peter Jackson’s dream project, a remake of the 1933 film, and his finest work as a filmmaker. Jackson builds the original out considerably and his command of the effects gives us something quite dazzling
Perhaps the greatest of all monster movies, one that has attained iconic status. A masterpiece of stop-motion animation, it imbues Kong with character and attains a delicate fairytale-like atmosphere
The first film from Bert I. Gordon, known for his cheap giant animal films through the 1950s. This concerns a space expedition to a planet inhabited by dinosaurs – cue Gordon’s usual cheap effects
Animated Justice League film, which adapts a comic-book storyline that reconceived the various DC superheroes as they were back in the era of their original creation
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
An enormous hit for Steven Spielberg who took new emergent CGI technologies and wowed audiences with dinosaurs brought to life in dazzlingly realistic detail. It doesn’t hurt that he delivers a relentlessly suspenseful film too
Steven Spielberg handed the directorial reins of the series over to Joe Johnston and this emerges as a better film than The Lost World was, even if it is only ever arranged around a series of effects set-pieces
A very cheaply made film (actually a remake of The Time Travelers) about a research laboratory propelled through time. Most of the historical scenes are represented by stock footage
A mockbusters from The Asylum made to coincide with the big-budget Brendan Fraser film. Resemblance to the Jules Verne book fairly much ends at the title
Hallmark TV mini-series version of the Jules Verne novel that keeps faith to the book for the most part before heading off on some colourfully exotic adventures
The success of Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea created a spate of Jules Verne’s adaptation. Here Verne’s tale of explorers in an underground realm has been turned into an absurdly colourful adventure
This family friendly adaptation of the classic Jules Verne novel was made to highlight the 3D process and throws most of the book out to essentially become Jules Verne the theme park ride
One of his earlier efforts from the great Karel Zeman wherein four boys journey through prehistory. Not the equal of Zeman’s later work, it feels more like an illustrated museum tour than a dramatic film
This was the second and weakest of the Josh Kirby juvenile time travel adventures that takes the young hero and companions to a future where they are enslaved by giants
This was the first and one of the weaker of the generally quite likeable films from Charles Band about the time-travelling adventures of a juvenile hero
Larry Buchanan is a director on a par with Edward D. Wood Jr. This, not to be confused with the 1974 killer baby film, is his best film. Buchanan creates a perverse obsessiveness that is fascinating to watch