6/10
Cheap special effects, but entertaining
3 March 2007
A lot of this movie looks like a re-do of some elements of King Kong, which had been released 15 years earlier. The stop-motion technology of Kong was here replaced by a forced-perspective split-screen approach to animate the ferocious gigantic beasts. Compared to today's CGI, the effects may seem as primitive as the dinosaurs it shows, but it's a fun movie to watch.

There's a bunch of tough sea dogs, one pretty girl, and some others introduced in pre-adventure bar room brawls and so on. Some explorer guy hears legends of the existence of the mysterious uncharted island, where prehistoric life has somehow avoided extinction, and books the sea dogs for a voyage to the island. Sound familiar? Apparently, this guy had heard about horrible deaths in the earlier film, and had aspirations to get killed in the same way.

I love the creatures in this film. They're not as scary as others you've seen, but they're certainly a novelty to see. They move slowly and stare with curiosity at panicky human characters who like to shoot at them. In a couple of scenes, one of the grinning dinosaurs even looks like he's about to sing the Barney song, "I Love You, You Love Me." Be on the lookout for Kong's toothy cousin, who stages the obligatory rematch with one of Barney's more vicious relatives.

It's all some good dinosaur fun, which was probably quite cool for its time, and it certainly can still entertain today, if you look past the cheap effects. The actors approach their characters with enthusiasm, and there is a good balance of character development, action, and plot development. A decent watch, for some fun drive-in nostalgia.
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