Triassic Attack (2010)

I like dinosaurs. Ever since I saw 'Jurassic Park', I loved that film and, even if the sequels were stupid, I still enjoyed them. Hell, I enjoyed 'The Dinosaur Project'. Learning about dinosaurs played a huge part of my childhood, so I'm always intrigued and excited by dinosaur films, even the ones which you'd expect to be bad.

This is a bad one.

Afraid that his culture is about to be literally bulldozed away, Dakota (Raoul Trujillo) "accidentally" (And by accidentally I mean on purpose, seriously most sources say accidentally) brings to life three dinosaur fossils; a Velociraptor, a Pteranodon, and the king of the dinosaurs himself, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. His nephew Jake (Steven Brand) must stop them from killing everything in sight while keeping his ex-wife Emma (Kirsty Mitchell), her new squeeze Richmond (Christopher Villiers), and his daughter Savannah (Emilia Clarke, yes the girl from 'Game of Thrones') safe.

First things first, these effects are horrible. They really are. At best they look like Morph. I mean, look at this:

Even the cow looks fake. In fact I'm pretty sure that's why the T-Rex kills it, it was going "Alright, I'ma gonna eat this human and...(MOOOO!) OHMYGOD A CGI COW! *Chomp!*". Hell now that I think about it 'The Dinosaur Project' had better effects!

Actually I have a few more complaints about these fossils. Firstly, how is the Pteranodon flying? I wouldn't have a problem if the dinosaurs had skin, but they don't, which means that the Pteranodon literally has nothing to give it lift. It's the equivalent of me flapping my arms trying to fly. Secondly, how are these dinosaurs roaring? They have no throat muscles! Then again I think being terrorised by mute dinosaurs will be less effective than roaring dinosaurs. Though I will say seeing the T-Rex attempt to eat someone, only to see the guy fall through the T-Rex's jaw (Because it doesn't have skin) was a nice little touch.

Before I go into anything else, there is one major problem with this film. The characters. Most of them anyway. I'll first go over the two characters I liked in this. Jake shows that he cares a lot about the people around him, and is willing to put his life on the line to save those close to him. Richmond, is British. He is therefore suppose to be a bad guy and it is his plan to expand the university. The only problem with this is he is actually in the right, he does have a human side to him, when the dinosaurs attack and everyone finds shelter he does think about protecting the guests. In fact the main reason why we're suppose to hate is, again, because he bought out the native American Indians land. The thing is he did it LEGALLY. He offered them a sum, they accepted it, the signed the papers, they CASHED the money, and THEN decided to protest. They don't get my sympathy. Oh, and then Wyatt (Gabriel Womack) pops the Hell out of nowhere and decides he wants to be a main character. He's okay.

And then we have the characters who I truly hate in this. Let's have Dakota first. He summoned the dinosaurs, okay, he did NOT do it by accident. I'll explain, you see, he did a ritual to summon "the protector", but for some reason summoned three dinosaur spirits, put them into fossils, "lost control", and they are now running amok. Seriously, how do you read your own God damn book wrong? In fact, he says he "lost control" which means he did choose dinosaur spirits! And how exactly does bringing dinosaurs to life save your museum? Even if you did have them under control? "Don't expand your university! Or I'll...have this T-Rex nudge you a little"? It makes YOU the bad guy! Oh and even worse, he later uses a metaphor, something along the lines of "once the storm has passed, everything will be greener", which means the three fossils going around killing people who had no connection to the construction of the university is a good thing, Dakota I fucking hate you. Oh and since this is movie logic, Dakota isn't arrested for the manslaughter of tens of people.

Second character, Savannah. The hatred truly starts when her father takes her from a party. She basically gives the impression that Jake is overprotective, even though, once again, he is in the right. Seriously, "If you're lucky enough I'll show you my tepee"? Did you really think that guy was interested in you besides sex? Oh and saying you didn't smoke pot that much, even if you were joking, isn't funny when you're saying that to A: your father, and B: THE SHERIFF! From that point on Savannah is irritating and comes off as a brat than anything else.

Third character I hate, Emma. I have no idea what her job is but apparently she's paid to believe that dinosaurs are roaming around. Yes, she's right, but why would that be your first thought? She sees the footprint of the T-Rex and DOESN'T think it's a hoax? She says that the thing that caused it had to be over 30 feet tall, apparently someone couldn't just make a fake foot out of wood and do it, oh no, it has to be a real dinosaur. Not only that, but, like Savannah, she always thinks she's in the right, everything anyone else, mainly Jake, says is wrong. Again, she comes off as irritating and annoying. And do you know what's worse? She uses Richmond's, her boyfriend, feelings for her to do what she wants, but it's so obvious that she will go back to Jake. Bitch. Although she does have a conversation with Jake which makes him say "So what are you saying? Dakota, my uncle, can conjure up some kind of ancient spirit?", well when you say it like that the plot sounds fucking stupid.

Any other character is bland and forgetful. The thing is, the film is forcing us to try and side with these characters, and that's why the film fails. How can we like these obnoxious, these arrogant, these (At times) selfish characters, who don't think about the consequences of their actions? If they had sorted this out, then this film could have been enjoyable. Oh it still would have been bad, but at least it could have been entertaining.

Do I need to go over the acting after that? Okay fine, some of the cast did the best they could with the script, Womack, Villiers and Clarke for one. But the rest were really off at times. Mitchell failed to emote at all during the film and Brand, I want to say was good, but...he was adequate, I'll say that. Any supporting characters really couldn't care less.

Like I said , it could have been enjoyable. But the main portion of the characters really let this film down. You cannot enjoy a film when you're forced to follow characters you don't like. Everything else is what you'd expect, it's just these infuriating, irritating, and damn right unlikable characters which really drag the film down. There is one redeeming feature though; see spoiler section.





Spoiler Section

There is a downside first of all. In the film, the main characters already saw that they can't simply smash the dinosaurs to pieces; Jake runs down the Raptor with his car and it just puts itself together. So why he thinks blowing them up with rocket launchers will work is beyond me. And sure enough, it doesn't. Seriously, he knew this, why did he think it would work? And why did the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Pteranodon just stand there and wait to be blown up? Anyway, as I said this doesn't work as the T-Rex and the Pteranodon just put themselves back together. Well, sort of. They don't exactly put themselves back together, they become one entity. Yeah. And guess what that creates...a flying Tyrannosaurus Rex:

 

Awesome.