T-REX: BACK TO THE CRETACEOUS (1998)
Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 4.0) ******************************** Key to rating system: 2.0 stars - Debatable 2.5 stars - Some people may like it 3.0 stars - I liked it 3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie 4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out ********************************* A Movie Review by David Sunga
Directed by: Brett Leonard
Written by: Andrew Gellis, Jeanne Rosenberg, adapted from a story by Andrew Gellis and David Young
Ingredients: Young girl ignored by her father, daydreaming, dinosaurs, meteor shower, 3-D vistas, landscapes, effects
Starring: Liz Stauber, Peter Horton
Synopsis: In this 3-D (IMAX) film, a girl named Ally (Liz Stauber) is ignored by her paleontologist father Dr. Hayden (Peter Horton) who works at a dinosaur museum. One day, she visits him while he is working after hours. Ally gets lost in the big museum and has daydreams in which she sees real dinosaurs and meets up with historical figures in dinosaur research who encourage her to form her own theories.
Opinion: Kids under 5 might find big animals too scary, and kids over 13 might not identify with the main character, but children of grade school age will probably like T-REX: BACK TO THE CRETACEOUS because the movie's gigantic dinosaurs and breathtaking landscapes really come alive with the 3-D effects and huge screen. It's a good chance for a family outing.
No, this isn't one of those action packed Jurassic Park sequels where hapless folks get chomped and stomped by oversized forbears of modern birds. T-REX: BACK TO THE CRETACEOUS is a children's educational flick. The plot is more like the kind you see on public television afterschool specials where some kid has wonderful imaginary adventures and learns a lot, too. The theme music can be a bit repetitive, and the fragmented daydreams don't offer much suspense, but for its young educational crowd T-REX: BACK TO THE CRETACEOUS is satisfying enough.
In general 3-D movie-making has a lot of untapped potential, despite idiosyncrasies. On the negative side, directors can't do as many fade-ins and fade-outs because it would make the audience too dizzy, and so you would have to do the whole film with only a few main locations. But on the plus side, 3-D would be an ideal medium for suspense films. Headphones are used by the audience members, so the music and targeted sound effects can be very sophisticated. And instead of using weird camera angles (a la Alfred Hitchcock) you can create instant suspense by showing the stalker's point of view, as he crawls around 3-D objects and the music ratchets up the tension. Not to mention how in 3-D a direct attack jumps right out at you. Given the targeted music and visual angles, imagine how terrifying SILENCE OF THE LAMBS might be, especially the scene where Jody Foster navigates the dark room where the killer is stalking her. At any rate, advances in 3-D movie-making are something to look out for in the future.
Reviewed by David Sunga November 14, 1998
Copyright © 1998 by David Sunga This review and others like it can be found at THE CRITIC ZOO: http://www.criticzoo.com email: zookeeper@criticzoo.com
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