The Dinosaur Project (2012) | a Review
originally published on 07/06/2022;
Hello everyone, I am the zoocryptidon, G.E.M.Simov, an ancient creature of the likes of Loch Ness' Nessie or the Chupakabra. In this review, I will tell you about 'The Dinosaur Project'.
Simple review details - I rank movies on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
A disclaimer - the terms 'movie' and 'film' will be used interchangeably in this review.
Presentation
This movie did not have a magnificent budget, by the looks of things, but then it seems as though it had no budget at all in a vast number of scenes, only for it to show off that it did have a budget, and that said budget was decent enough. What does that mean?
Well, first off, it means that the viewing experience is going to be varied. That would be a good thing if we were talking about a number of different movies, but when talking about a single movie, then I'd say this is a problem. The main issue I ran into was the overwhelming destruction of the immersion that was being created through the means of presentation that the movie was getting, which breaks are introduced by moments that are evidently inappropriate.
I must base this on something, so I'll base it off of the fact that the movie is presented to the viewer through the lens (haha) of a 'found footage' film. Everything that the audience sees is being recorded by a camera held BY the characters in the movie itself. There's a multitude of cuts which are preceded by visuals that indicate corruption of the video file, or of the recording, there are indications of cameras breaking, there are moments when the lens of a camera is being cleaned up.
This all serves to create a certain feeling, which feeling helps the viewer immerse themselves into the film. Found footage is especially potent when it comes to this, because it provides a layer of incredibly slight suspension of disbelief, through the medium of the concept that, hey, you, the viewer, could imagine that this movie is actually something that happened in reality and was just recorded by these people.
That, however, then necessitates a visual/presentational consistency in the film itself. A consistency which was nowhere to be found. There are at least two moments at which the presentational consistency disappears without a trace.
First comes a moment when a helicopter crash occurs, which would entail a certain amount of shaking, of chaos and even spinning. However, the scene only featured a very slight wobble, rather than any of the aforementioned things. Naturally, the shaking and chaos could have been created by the characters in the scene reacting to the event of a crash, however there was no such thing, as the actors largely just sat still, as though they were sacks of potatoes on a pair of benches.
The second scene features a boat going down a steep incline in a river, a rapid, or a series of waterfalls… or something along those lines. Again, the fact that the cameras that are presenting the action to the audience are handheld, in the movie itself, indicates that there should be a measure of shakiness to them which was nowhere to be found.
One could say that under normal circumstances, there can be no shakiness, which is reasonable, but there was as much (read 0) shakiness in the scene featuring the boat going through river rapids as is in every other scene. That makes it more than evident that there was no actual boat journeys which takes away from the viewers ability to immerse themselves into the movie, which was the goal of the film, considering it was a 'found footage' film.
Then there's the question of the dinosaurs in the movie. They are… Well, they are. Naturally, they've got scales exclusively and no feathers, which might be excusable, considering the age of this movie, but it's still been a while since folks actually came to realize that dinosaurs were feathered creates, actually.
The dinosaurs don't look too bad. They look very passable on cameras with lessened visibility - be they night vision ones or the ones simply at night - however they're evidently CGI of a mediocre quality when it comes to scenes with better visibility and daylight. In addition to that, some shots are just… Bad, or rather bizarre.
An example would be in the early stage of the movie, when the characters are becoming somewhat acquainted with one another (and introduced to the audience), the character handling the camera goes on to pan to a female characters breasts, after which he pans to her rear for an uncomfortably long period of time. That pair of, dare I say scenes, was completely pointless from a story perspective, and the shots were simply tasteless.
All in all, this film has an interesting approach, a few good hits, but a lot of misses. 1/3
Acting
The category I have the least to say about, in general, really had me pondering this time. On the one hand, the remainder of the movie made me almost certain that this aspect of it was, by necessity, obligated to be bad. And the more I think about it, the more evident it became to me that it is actually so, but then it also isn't quite so.
That's because I think there are a few reasonable performances, a few performances that really could not have been anything better than they were, and then there were a few performances that were very… Unfortunate, shall I say?
The reasonable performances are brought down to one, that being the performance of the main antagonist, who is supposed to go crazy over the course of the movie. In the beginning, he really does manage to present a convincing spiel of being a proper, maybe even likeable fellow, although there was a sinister twang to him. As the movie goes on, the actor manages to adopt a truly deranged appearance and does a satisfactory job delivering his lines in a convincingly insane manner, albeit not perfectly.
Then there's the roles that could not have been done much better - those are bound to the characters who wound up short lived and barely utilized in the film. That applies, paradoxically, to one of the female characters, who has a relatively large presence early on, only to then be cut off. The issue with that character's perception of 'importance' could stem from the fact that she was the 'eye candy' character that was featured in the leering shots I mentioned in the Presentation section, which lasted too long. When it comes to her lines and performance, though, there was not much that could have been done better.
The remainder of the performances were not stellar. They were not too convincing, but they were not outright unable to convince me in the first place. They were just barely mediocre or slightly sub-par. 1/3
Story
Now, here comes a kicker. The story is, conceptually, not bad. In fact, the concept is very intriguing.
A valley somewhere in the jungles of the Congo, of all places, which to this day houses dinosaurs? Most intriguing. That being explored through the lens of an expedition that was meant to be deceived by the Congolese government into finding out that there was no such valley, only for things to go wrong and for the explorers to actually find the dinosaurs? The fact that one of said explorers goes mad with a desire for greatness and works to sabotage the expedition so that he can lay claim to the accomplishment of discovering dinosaurs?
Sounds pretty cool, and there's a pair of antagonists on top of that! Unfortunately, though, the execution is quite laughably bad. First, there are no characters who are attempted as immediately likeable.
One of the main characters appears and the first thing he does on screen is make fun of his father whilst also behaving in an incredibly bratty manner, which is generally unpleasant to behold. Another character is the previous one's father, and he, too, is not likeable, because he is presented as far too strewn and possessive of no faith in his child. Another character is presented as overly skeptical to the task at hand. Another is presented as obsessed with being the 'camera guy' to a point where he's almost hostile to other characters. There's a character that's presented as likeable, but that could be because she's a pretty lady. There's another character presented as such, but it is evident that things have a darker root.
As the movie progresses, many characters who start off slightly dislikeable wind up being incorrigible, while those who start off likeable end up indisposed or impossible to be anything to anyone else. That's unfortunate, but it is what it is. I think there are only two characters who actually might be improved by the end of the movie, both of whom get that development very quickly and as a result of which said development seems unnatural and maybe even forced.
It's all a shame, frankly, because the concept and the setting are incredibly interesting. Even though Africa is a land that is somewhat known to us, it still remains strangely obscure for those who do not live upon it or are not directly involved in finding out more about it. That allows for a certain measure of believability when it comes to stuff, such as what is proposed in this movie. Maybe not believability, but an ease when it comes to suspending one's disbelief.
All in all, though, that's all this movie really is. An interesting concept with a very subpar execution that's only going to wind up on people's screen on accident or if they're just flipping through TV channels. 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this film get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? I needn't answer the question, but I'll do so nonetheless. I felt as though the movie was dangerously close to getting it, always at the precipice, yet never quite where it needed to be to get it.
That is the problem. If the movie was a bit better done, if the characters were a bit more believable or likeable, if the story was better told, if the actors did more, I feel as though I could have really liked the movie. Enough, in fact, to deem it worthy of the legendary point. I mean, it was almost there, what with the inexplicable means of traveling through to the dinosaur valley, the incredible depth of the water therein, the apparent transportation from one world to the other, the secrecy of it, the way the native people somewhat knew of it and treated the dinosaurs as demons or evil spirits, and how the government of the Congo knew of it…
Quite impressive. Quite interesting. But not enough. A resounding NO is all this movie gets. 0/1
Conclusion
3/10. I was feeling as though maybe the movie deserved a bit of a higher rating, but then at the same time it was not a good movie, which left me pondering. It's a movie you can watch with friends on a drunk night, or a movie you can put on for noise. It's nothing incredible, not to me, and I'd wager it will be incredible for children exclusively. Or, maybe, massive fans of dinosaurs.
On the wall of shame I hang it. It's strange, because it almost seems as though it does not deserve the wall of shame, but then there's no other place for it. A shame, truly.