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Dinosaur Project (12A)
© Unknown - all rights reserved |
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| Tookey's Rating |
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4
/10 |
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| Average Rating |
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4.80
/10 |
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| Starring |
Matt Kane, Richard Dillane, Peter Brooke 
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| Full Cast > |
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Directed by:
Sid Bennett
Written by:
Sid Bennett, Jay Basu
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| Released: |
2012 |
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| Genre: |
ADVENTURE
MONSTER
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| Origin: |
UK |
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| Colour: |
C |
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| Length: |
83 |
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Old hat, but fun. |
Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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In The Dinosaur Project, explorers go in search of a lost world with state-of-the-art video cameras. Their target: the Mokele Mbembe, a Loch Ness monsterlike creature lurking in the depths of the Congo.
This is an eccentrically British attempt to paste together two very different genres: stupendous dinosaur epic, like Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, and found-footage, oh-dear-they’re-all-dead fake documentary, like The Blair Witch Project and dozens of others.
Surprisingly, the movie isn’t let down by the animated dinosaurs, which are impressive both in the way they look and in how they interact with the humans.
The problem is something that could have been put right before the picture went into production. The script is a lazy hotchpotch of recycled elements: the stowaway child from Jurassic Park 2, cute little dinos from Jurassic Park 3, father-son friction resolving itself from James Cameron’s Sanctum, and the guy who suddenly turns traitor and starts over-acting – from just about every lost world picture ever made.
Director Sid Bennett (who co-wrote the script with Jay Basu) captures the feeling of an expedition crumbling, but can’t do character development or thrilling action. Nor does he seem to have an original idea in his head. Even expedition leader Richard Dillane’s hat seems to have been borrowed from Sam Neill.
Despite all those faults, I’m glad I saw it. It’s harmless fun, and I was never bored. Best of all, like Troll Hunter, it shows how quite an ambitious film can be made these days for very little money. Many people could learn from this film’s achievements - and its mistakes.
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