The Dinosaur Project Review

It’s probably bad to want the protagonist to die throughout a movie, but such is the grating nature of the main character in The Dinosaur Project, that it’s impossible to not wish ill upon him.

And that’s just one of the many problems with this action-adventure that wants to be The Blair Witch Project meets Jurassic Park, but ends up playing more like an over-long and undercooked episode of Primeval.

The first issue is that it’s a ‘found footage’ movie, proceedings kicking off with a pair of Congolese fisherman discovering a rucksack filled with tapes and hard drives that document a British Cryptozoological Society jungle expedition.

Their mission? To track down ‘Mokele Mbembe’ – Africa’s answer to the Loch Ness Monster, and a creature thought to be descended from the dinosaurs.

But the found footage has to be shot before it's discovered, so the first 20 minutes of the film are spent contriving ways for the cameras to make it onto the journey and then keep rolling in the face of danger and death.

So a TV crew is invited to join renowned explorer Jonathan Marchant – and his slightly less renowned adventurer pal Charlie Rutherford – on their African odyssey, and encouraged to shoot whatever they witness.

But wouldn’t you know it, Jonathan’s camera-loving son Luke has also stowed away on the expedition, bringing with him state-of-the-art filming equipment that would put David Attenborough’s production team to shame.

So far, so contrived, and no sooner has the increasingly annoying Luke attached tiny cameras to the team’s apparel when their plane is attacked by a flock of flying creatures that bear more than a passing resemblance to pterodactyls.



They crash-land in the middle of the jungle, and before you can say Brassic Park, the expedition is being hunted down by large, vicious bat-like creatures that behave like dinosaur vampires, attacking the neck as they devour their prey.

Meanwhile Justin Bieb-a-like Luke has now taken centre stage, grabbing his camera to shoot a series of video diaries in which he moans about his Dad not loving him enough.

And that’s about it in terms of story, the unconvincing father-son soap opera playing alongside the crew dropping like flies. Along the way one of their number turns nasty to prove that we are the true monsters, and Luke befriends a dino-cub called Crypto who may be the most annoying dinosaur sidekick since this one.

The creatures themselves predictably disappointing, the effects created by the same company that crafted the BBC’s Planet Dinosaur and failing to ever rise above TV quality; the reveal of Mokele Mbembe particularly underwhelming.

But they are a damn-site better than the performances, with Matt Kane appalling as the film’s supposed hero Luke, and Peter Brooke equally abysmal as forgotten man Charlie. Only Richard Dillane – playing action-man Richard Marchant – comes out of it with any dignity, doing a fair impression of a poor man’s Indiana Jones throughout.

Writer-director Sid Bennett does manage to eek moments of tension out of the premise, and the vast African vistas glimpsed throughout are a joy to behold, but they aren’t enough to rescue The Dinosaur Project, a found footage flick that disappoints at just about every turn, and makes you wish the tapes had remained lost.


Source : feeds.ign.com