T-REX: BACK TO THE CRETACEOUS

INTRODUCTION: Computer Generated Imagery of dinosaurs shown in 3D on a screen the size of a small office block, after years of piddling about with crappy travelogues IMAX may finally of come of age and found its killer application.

SYNOPSIS: A potentially fatal climbing accident on a dig in Dinosaur Provincial Park in Alberta leads palaeontologist Dr. Donald Haydon (Horton) and his assistant Elizabeth Sample (Coleman) to uncover a near complete dinosaur skeleton and some unidentified prehistoric artefacts. Meanwhile back at the New York Museum of Natural History, Haydon's daughter Ally (Stauber) finds herself leading school parties on tours around the museum and writing a thesis on parenting instincts in the Tyrannosaurus Rex, when all she really wants to do is join her father in the field.

Upon his return with the artefacts, Haydon dismisses Ally's thesis as pure conjecture and refuses her requests for a place on the next expedition. Ally accidentally uncovers the secret of the artefacts and finds herself travelling through time, gathering substantiating proof for her thesis.

She encounters famous early 20th century dinosaur illustrator Charles Knight (Milligan) and bone digger Barnum Brown (Murdoch), a herd of Hadrosaurs, a pair of Deinonychus, a Pteranadon and an Ornithomimus before finally coming nose-to-snout with the Tyrannosaurus Rex itself.

REVIEW: The derivative story is of course perfunctory, merely an excuse for some 70mm 3-D filmic thrills, which "Lawnmower Man" and "Virtuosity" director Bret Leonard, is more than qualified to hand out. Unfortunately he seems to suffer from a fatal moment of indecision unable to decide if he is making a piece of cinema or a theme-park attraction he falls uncomfortably somewhere in between, with not enough thrills to classed as a ride and not enough plot to be classed as a movie,

Coleman, Murdoch & Milligan make the most of their brief guest appearances, while Horton and Stauber struggle with their lead roles, they are however completely out-classed by the virtual members of the cast, but in fairness they are given nothing to work with, their parts are horrendously under-written, giving them little more to do than link the all too brief appearances from the dinosaurs.

Andrew Gellis & Jeanne Rosenberg's screenplay from as story by Gellis & David Young, seems somewhat confused, despite being well researched, doubtless thanks to the assistance of Dr. Philip Currie, it seems uncertain as to what it is trying to achieve. The scenes with Brown and Knight while giving the audience a good grounding in the history of palaeontology, do little to forward the story, and distract from the 3-D dinosaur action which is surely the true purpose of the film.

The truth is that the age of the blockbuster may at last be over, the paying public it seems is no longer willing to accepts bangs and beasties as a suitable alternative to a good story and believable characterisations. How else do you explain the phenomenal success of such pitifully mediocre movies as "Titanic" and "The Truman Show" while more traditional fayre such as "The Avengers", "Armageddon" and T-Rex's closest living relative "Godzilla" bomb. The film scores over "Godzilla" by virtue of the fact that it's in 3D, it's on a truly massive screen, and it's only half the length, leading to a more intense experience, but there are still less thrills here than can be got from a moderately exhilarating theme-park ride. The blockbuster is still a long way off extinction, as the up-coming release of "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" will doubtless prove, but the ice-age has set in and IMAX need to take a serious look at the future of their technology.

3-D has come along way since the Creature first crawled out of the Black Lagoon but it still has yet to achieve its promise of giving us a more realistic cinema going experience. Why IMAX feel that the audiences that proved unwilling to don the crappy cardboard glasses of the old days will take to the modern clunky headsets is something of mystery. This is not the only obstacle for the potential audience, as there are only 200 IMAX cinemas in the world, and not all of these can handle 3D, their are only two in this country, and the one that I went to is the Pepsi IMAX in London's Trocedero which incidentally also contains a couple of moderately exhilarating theme-park rides.

More of an experience than a movie, and an ultimately unfulfilling one at that.

Mutt's Rating: **

Home | Reviews | Reputations | Contact the Lizard