I'm kind of getting sick of all the found footage films now. Yes, 'Cannibal Holocaust' is the earliest film I remember, but it was 'Cloverfield' that popularised it. And since then we've had, I don't know, at least five or six found footage films a year.
And so we have 'The Dinosaur Project', what is effectively the 'Troll Hunter' of this year; it looks interesting, I really wanted to see it, and no cinema near me was playing it. The film was only on show at Empire chain cinemas...and I haven't a clue where the nearest one of those is. I got it on DVD a week after its release.
'The Dinosaur Project', you guessed it, takes place when a group of locals in the Congo find a rucksack in the water with film footage of The Dinosaur Project group, who had gone into the Congo to investigate what appears to be a dinosaur siting. Like the Loch Ness monster. Upon a Pterodactyl flying into the helicopter's propellers ('How?' comes to mind), the helicopter crashes and our explorers find themselves trying to survive in a dinosaur infested land.
Okay, first of all, the film starts off with the typical message all found footage films have now, that the footage has not been tampered with in anyway. Which is weird seeing as how the footage has all been edited together, including a clip from Youtube. But okay, I know you're trying to maintain the illusion movie, but, you're about dinosaurs. You're about living, breathing dinosaurs that survived whatever extinction level event befell the others. So these effects for the dinosaurs had better be...
Oh my God.
Yeah, these effects really put the dinosaurs from 'Jurassic Park', a film that is nineteen years old to shame.
Let's just start with that shall we. The effects for the dinosaurs, they can actually be pretty good. If the dinosaur in question is small, like...whatever Crypto's species is (It appears to be a descendant of the same dinosaur that killed Dennis in 'Jurassic Park'), then the dinosaur actually looks really good. Unless it's the...bat-like dinosaurs that attacked the camp, or Crypto's mummy and daddy, they just looked awful, I've seen better graphics in video games. Still. Better than the two headed shark.
Apart from that, there really isn't anything bad to say. The plot has pretty much been used time and time again, just with different circumstances, an example being 'Cannibal Ferox'; just replace 'cannibals' with 'dinosaurs'. But the story was actually well thought out. There is a sub-plot involving Luke (Matt Kane) and his father Jonathan (Richard Dillane) having difficulties...which is basically resolved at one point and it doesn't go into much depth other than they don't like each other.
Okay, so there are other bad things in this, I won't lie and say there aren't. The acting, I suppose for what it is, it's actually pretty...adequate. Yes the acting isn't that great, with quite a few lines being forced and contrived, but in all honesty, it does look like the actors and actresses did the best they could with what they had. It isn't horrendous, but I wouldn't expect soap operas to have this sort of acting.
Speaking of soap operas, this film might as well be one. It's full of cliches, like the father and son relationship, the rebellious yet genius son, and the best friend who turns out to be a dick. But in all fairness the characters themselves are alright, and a couple of them do have their stand alone brilliant moments which show how badass they are. However, I did not like Amara (Abena Ayivor). Ayivor isn't that great an actress, the character is self-righteous, constantly moans about how it isn't safe, and at one point when a character is in grave danger, she couldn't give a shit.
In all honesty, this isn't a bad film, but it should have been better. The story, the acting, the characters are all okay, while the effects are mix and match mainly due to the low budget. The problem is that they aren't good. The problem is the script. The flow is awful, there is horrible dialogue, and the film is full of cliches. The script and the direction the film takes, well, it holds the film back. It's an okay film, but it's just there. It isn't that spectacular, it's just something that you can put on the shelf. Believe me, it's worth the one watch, it is fairly entertaining, but it doesn't achieve its potential.
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