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.
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
The best animated film Disney ever made, created as a work of art with animation set to classical music. The segments vary between abstraction, comic eccentricity and evocations of nightmare. The results are magical.
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
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 first full computer animated film from Disney. It feels like someone decided to give the Jurassic Park dinosaurs their own film, mixed up with the plot of The Land Before Time
Superlative film that recreates an imagined world of 1930s retro sf filled with flyer heroes, giant robots and stunning Art Deco designs.
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
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 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
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
The eighteenth Godzilla film and one of the best of the modern era. This has the most conceptually audacious plot of any Godzilla film and overflows with wild ideas involving time travel and changing the timeline
Superior revived dinosaur amok movie. While the effects are the cut-price man in the monster suit ones, these are expertly achieved and the film comes with a surprisingly poignant twist that makes it stand out
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
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
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
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
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
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
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)
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
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
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 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
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
An early film from Willis O’Brien, the creator of King Kong, where a man finds a telescope that offers a view of the prehistoric past
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
Modestly effective Soviet SF film about an expedition to Venus where the cosmonauts encounter a wild and colourful planet of plants and prehistoric wildlife
Likeable puppet animated film about a time-travelling boy and his monkey companion
Animated adaption of the comic-book about a Native American warrior stranded in a prehistoric lost world
Disney family film about an expedition to Africa to find a dinosaur. This was made before Jurassic Park and so the effects are physical and variable but the film has an undeniable tenderness
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
One of the better films from Charles Band – an uncredited homage to Marvel’s Dr Strange. The film captures a wonderful atmosphere of esotericism and Jeffrey Combs is perfect as the sorcerer superhero
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
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
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
Third of The Land Before Time animated films about talking dinosaurs, made for very young children
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
A modestly effective Jurassic Park copy from The Asylum with genetically-revived dinosaurs loose in L.A. and featuring better than usual effects
A classic of the genre for a number of reason – it was the film that kicked off the 1950s fad for atomic monsters, featuring an archetypal story about a dinosaur brought back to life by atomic tests. It also featured among the very first screen credits for both Ray Bradbury and stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
Reasonable low-budget revived dinosaur film with not bad CGI effects and an often witty, genre savvy script
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
A low-budget effort but amiable effort about dinosaurs and a caveman that are revived on an island. The cheap effects, culminating in a battle between a dinosaur and a crane, have some imagination
A compilation of shorts from anime directors set in the Halo videogame universe. The first two episodes have a breathtaking scale but the others are bitsy stories but nothing standout
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
The first sequel to House, this is largely unrelated to its predecessor and plays itself with a sense of humour to emerge as the superior film. Now a skull opens doorways in the house into different eras
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
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
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
Routine B-budget lost world fantasy with a group of explorers stranded on an island filled with dinosaurs
Low-budget film with scientists in search of a downed rocket who encounter a prehistoric lost world of dinosaurs on an island plateau
This comes with an intriguingly original concept – that Spanish Conquistador Hernan Cortes during his conquest of Mexico came up against dinosaurs
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
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
Juvenile animated film from Amblin Entertainment concerning dinosaurs whose intelligence is raised to human level and they are let loose in the present-day
Film from The Asylum about dinosaurs hunting mercenaries. Essentially Jurassic Park that takes place in a warehouse
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
Sequel to the Ben Stiller hit offers more of the same with a bigger museum and more exhibits come to life but little else
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
Disney film about a group of teens who find that heart of a UFO that opens up a time warp at their high school
A bizarre Italian film that recounts the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and then follows on from their banishment from Eden and into the wilderness where they encounter dinosaurs, cavemen and wild beasts
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 TV mini-series based on the popular illustrated books by James Gurney about the discovery of a lost land where dinosaurs have evolved into their own civilisation
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
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 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
The director of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms essentially rehashes the same film here with another atomically revived dinosaur this time attacking London instead of New York
The first in what later became a fad for replicating cartoon tv series as big-budget live-action films, this does an exacting live-action version of the Hanna-Barbera series
Adaptation of a classic British children’s book made by Jim Henson Productions where children discover a sand fairy that grants wishes. The film is largely centered around creating slapstick chaos
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 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
The very first film from stop-motion animator Willis O’Brien, the creator of King Kong. A rather slight piece about the comic shenanigans among a group of cave people but it was the first film to ever depict a dinosaur on screen.
A comedy spoof of One Million Years B.C. and the whole sub-genre of caveman vs dinosaurs films This proves amiably goofy where Ringo Starr seems perfectly cast as the lead caveman
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
This offers the novelty of a Loch Ness monster film that takes place in Canada! This is otherwise a routine monster of the era made for the Syfy Channel
Second in the trilogy of Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations starring Doug McClure. This opens with the fabulous invention of the drilling mole but the arrival at the earth’s core look cheap and tatty
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
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
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
Another of Blue Sky Studios’ interminable animated sequels to its likeable original about prehistoric talking animals. This has little substance beyond a kinetic rush from one gag to the next
The fourth of The Land Before Time animated films about talking dinosaurs, having been made for very young children
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
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 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
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