You've seen the best, now it's time for the worst. After examining ten great dinosaur movies, it’s time to dig up the coprolites (A.K.A. fossil feces) that are these ten terrible Triassic terrors (wow that’s a lot of T’s). What I’m getting at is, these ten dinosaur movies will fossilize your brain with their terribleness.
[Dis]Honourable
Mentions: The Eden Formula (2006)
and The Lost World (1960). The first
film here makes use of stock footage from the Carnosaur film series, and is about a T-rex that gets loose and
attacks Los Angeles. I’ve never seen it, but from what I’ve read online, it
sounds like it could be worse than all ten of these movies. As for the second
film, though not horrible, it isn’t a great adaptation of the novel by Arthur
Conan Doyle, and the dinosaurs fail to deliver. It seems the director tried to
cheap out by gluing plastic horns on iguanas and baby crocodiles, make the poor
animals fight on a miniature set, and call it a dinosaur battle. Not only is it
unconvincing, I’m pretty sure some animal cruelty laws were broken here,
too.
10. All Monsters Attack (1969)
Starting off this list is a Godzilla movie that represents the lowest point for the character
in cinematic history. Godzilla is a dinosaur, technically speaking. Considered
a combination of a Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Iguanodon, Big G is not only
a unique cinema hybrid, but one of the most famous monsters in
history—certainly the most well known giant monster. So technically speaking, every
Godzilla film is a dinosaur film, and
though I didn’t include any of them on my best dinosaur movies list, here I am
presenting the absolute worst of all the Godzilla
films. First off, it makes use of stock footage from previous Godzilla flicks, which is fine if you
haven’t seen those respective films, but if you have, then you’ve already seen the
best parts of All Monsters Attack.
The three main problems are 1) the movie exists outside of the Godzilla timeline, so everything feels
inconsequential, 2) the film is targeted directly at children, complete with a
heartfelt message that isn’t even clear to begin with, but is essentially about
standing up for yourself, and 3) it features a child actor as the main
character. Other problems worth noting are the ridiculous plot, stupid looking
monster, and overuse of Godzilla’s son, Minilla. Aside from a couple okay fight
scenes, there is little here that Godzilla fans will respond to, and next to
nothing for any casual viewer to enjoy.
9. Carnosaur 3: Primal Species (1996)
For what they’re worth, Carnosaur
and Carnosaur 2 were decent pieces of
entertainment. Carnosaur 3, on the
other hand, dropped to an even lower level than the first two movies. The main
criticisms of Carnosaur were the
questionable animatronic dinos and insane plot. While the dinos were hit and
miss (though mostly miss) they were still entertaining, and the plot was crazy
enough to keep you interested. With Carnosaur
2, though the plot basically rips everything off from Aliens and inserts dinosaurs as villains, the dinos still made
enough appearances to make this a mostly worthy sequel. With Carnosaur 3, the plot descends into
utter failure, and the dinosaurs—the film’s real stars which are supposed to
make this watchable—fail to leave any sort of impression due to lack of screen
time, and when they do show up, they’re every bit as clunky and rubber looking
as before. The main issue I have is the plot. It’s so far removed from the last
two movies that I couldn’t even figure out how it was related (not that it
really matters at all). It could have just been called Primal Species, but I guess they wanted the semi-marketability of
the Carnosaur title. This is a
supremely bad threequel, but you know which threequel is even worse...?
8. Prehysteria 3! (1995)
...Prehysteria 3! I
guess I should explain what the first two Prehysteria!
films were about before tackling the third one. As a kid, I enjoyed the first
one purely for the dinosaur fun. Five miniature dinosaurs named after famous
singers—Elvis the T-rex, Madonna the Pteranodon, Paula the Brachiosaurus,
Jagger the Stegosaurus, and Hammer the Chasmosaurus—are stolen as eggs from a
South American temple, then after a mix up, get into the hands of two kids who
keep them as pets. I loved the idea of miniature dinos as pets, but nowadays
the concept seems stupid. The filmmakers kept them small so they would be
family friendly and not go around ripping people’s heads off. In Prehysteria! 2, the micro dinos get
shipped off in a box of raisins and are discovered by a bullied boy. The
dinosaurs (somehow) help him gain the confidence he needs and get him happy
about life again. If you thought the ridiculousness couldn’t get any greater,
then you are extinct wrong—err, dead wrong. Prehysteria!
3 takes place on a miniature golf course. The dinosaurs’ presence makes the
golf course popular again. Let that sink in for a second. If I saw any of these
films today, I would probably despise everything about them except the stop
motion dinosaur effects, which were decent. Even as a little kid I found Prehysteria! 3 ludicrous and boring.
7. A Sound of Thunder (2005)
This adaptation of a short story by Ray Bradbury, starring Sir
Ben Kingsley of all people, is baffling. How an actor can go from winning the
Best Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of Ghandi to this pile of garbage is
questionable, but what’s even more questionable are the visual effects and plot
holes in this train wreck of a film. In the future, Kingsley’s character makes
butt loads of money from time safaris, which allow rich people to go back in
time and hunt dinosaurs that are going to die naturally anyway, so by hunting
them it doesn’t disrupt the timeline and nothing goes wrong. When someone
accidently steps on a butterfly on one of these time safaris, however, it
creates waves of evolutionary changes in the future/present (surely this is the
most literal demonstration of the butterfly effect in a movie ever). Strange
and dangerous creatures start popping up everywhere, including killer baboons,
slithering serpents, and bat-like creatures. The cgi is consistently terrible
and the creatures are lame, but the dinosaur, which plays a fairly important
role, is just as bad. The adventurers shoot and kill an Allosaurus, which looks
like an animated plastic toy. It’s inexcusable that a 2005 theatrically
released sci-fi thriller like this has such poor visual effects, and
considering the standards set by Jurassic
Park, the Allosaurus is far below sub-par.
6. Super Mario Bros. (1993)
One of the biggest letdowns for a generation, you may not
have realized the Super Mario Bros. movie
is also a dinosaur movie. Explaining how this is a terrible movie in general
and fails to be any kind of good (especially as an adaptation of the classic
game) is a whole other issue, so I’ll focus on the dinosaur aspects only. In
the film, the Mario Bros. take on King Koopa, a dictator who is trying to fuse
an alternate universe with ours. Koopa is a descendant of T-rex. That’s right,
he is actually a dinosaur. Near the end of the film he transforms into a
humanoid T-rex beastie, which looks ridiculous. Why the filmmakers thought to
make a Mario Bros. movie with
dinosaurs featured so prominently is beyond my understanding. I suppose because
Jurassic Park was coming out around
the same time, they were trying to cash in on the dinosaur craze,
in an attempt to salvage an otherwise lost cause of a movie. It didn’t help, as
Super Mario Bros. tanked at the box
office, received negative reviews, disappointed fans, and went down in history
as one of the worst video game inspired films ever. For me, it’s not only one
of the worst video game movies; it’s also one of the worst dinosaur movies.
5. The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of
Friends (2007)
First of all, these movies are made for little kids, which I
understand. I’ve even watched many of them again as an adult, and they aren’t all
terrible. However, after about the fifth or sixth sequel, the watering hole for
ideas began running dry, and the movies began getting worse with each entry. It
doesn’t matter which one I mention after the sixth sequel because they are all
bad, but this final one—the thirteen
one—is surely the worst, since the home video releases seemed to go extinct
after its release. I wasn’t able to watch the entire thing due to the excessive
annoying songs and even more annoying voice acting. I wasn’t able to gather
much from the plot, either, beyond the typical child dinosaur antics; though
I’m sure there was a lesson or two thrown in for good measure. Just look at
that Roman numeral in the title, how many kids know which number that
represents? I bet there are grandparents who don’t even know it! I could easily
say this is the worst dinosaur movie of all, but who cares, it’s a show for
kids too young to even think yet anyway. It sucks, but it’s still not the
worst.
4. Adventures in Dinosaur City (1991)
I can remember watching this made for TV movie in elementary
school, and being left somewhat mystified. Beyond one scene with a sea monster
type dinosaur, there was nothing in this entire movie that interested me or
kept me entertained. I re-watched it recently and discovered Adventures in Dinosaur City is even
worse than I remembered it. The budget for this thing must have been huge, and
by huge I mean hugely disappointing. Three teenage friends are left home alone
for the weekend. They all sit down to watch a new episode of their favourite TV
show, which features anthropomorphic cartoon dinosaurs. During this scene they
all groove to the theme song; it’s absolutely hilarious to watch these teens
get so jacked up about a show clearly intended for little kids. They end up getting
sucked into the show and meeting their heroes, Rex and Tops, who prove to be a
lot duller than the show would have led viewers (and the kids) to believe (not sure how that’s
possible). After a quick pep talk the two rebel reptiles help the kids defeat
evil Mr. Big, who isn’t a chocolate bar unfortunately, but he does have a
creepy cloak, so you know he means business.
Besides the poor acting, cheap set designs, and uninspired plot, the
dinosaurs are atrocious and the suits limit the actor’s movement greatly. Adventures in Dinosaur City is one of
those movies that may be so bad it’s good for some viewers, but for me it just
blows.
3. Theodore Rex (1995)
Now we’re deep into the dino doo doo. Theodore Rex (A.K.A. T.rex),
starring Whoopie Goldberg as a hardened police detective, finds her character
partnered up with a walking, talking Tyrannosaurus rex, who also happens to be
a cop. After seeing the movie, it becomes clear why Whoopie Goldberg wanted out
of this production. Flawed right from the beginning, Theodore Rex was intended for theatrical release, but I guess
because it was so bad it only got released on home video. Theodore is portrayed
by a man in a suit, similar in design to the dinos from the TV series Dinosaurs which aired around the same
time this was made. Everything about this movie is underwhelming and/or
annoying. The dinosaurs simply don’t deliver and don’t work, the humour is just
not funny, and the plot is so nonsensical not even a child will be able to accept
it. The dinosaur suits even rival Adventures
in Dinosaur City in crappiness. Not only one of the worst dinosaur movies
ever, it’s one of the worst buddy cop comedies ever, one of Whoopie Goldberg’s
worst movies, and a worst in several other regards. Undeniably the worst
dinosaur movie of the nineties, it’s different from Adventures in Dinosaur City in that there is no way anyone could
think this is so bad it’s good.
2. Age of Dinosaurs (2013)
You may remember this one from my list of top ten worst
straight to DVD films. Back from extinction is this atrocious Asylum
production, which rips off Jurassic Park
more than any other movie represented here. Dinosaurs are brought back to life
via cloning just like in Michael Crichton’s novel, and just like in the movie
sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park,
the dinosaurs attack a city and cause mayhem. Unlike those two works, however,
this is lowest denominator entertainment (if you can even call it that) at its
most shameful. The cgi for the dinosaurs is typically shit, but what’s almost
surprising is the use of animatronics and puppets, rather than 100 % cgi. And
wouldn’t you know it, the puppets look like puppets and the animatronics look
worse than animatronics for some of the Jurassic
Park inspired them park rides. How are such idiotic films being made as
recently as the year 2013?!As I stated before, this isn’t even entertaining or
worth your time in the least, and every single person in the credits of this
film should feel ashamed for being associated with it.
1. Triassic Attack (2010)
Ian Malcolm said it best: “Now that is one big pile of shit.”
By far the most offensively terrible dinosaur movie of all time, there aren’t
even words to express how shocking, repugnant, and simply bad this movie is. This
is a SyFy made for TV movie, mind you, but it could have been a college film
project and it still would be inexcusable. It is literally so bad, I may have
to re-work the top ten worst movies list and shove this turd in there
somewhere. Dinosaur bones—not dinosaurs with flesh and skin and such, actual
articulate skeletons—are brought back
to life through some kind of reanimation, and the living skeletons instigate
some museum mayhem. I can’t speak for everyone out there, but I personally watch
a dinosaur movie with the hope that the dinosaurs deliver, at least. I don’t
care so much about the quality of acting or plot; the main goal is to see
decent looking dinosaurs causing mayhem. When a dinosaur film like this can’t
even deliver on the most basic level of having actual fucking dinosaurs in the movie, then I really don’t know
what to say. It’s basically Night at the
Museum gone wrong. Another tidbit of shit that makes this abomination even
more depressing is it stars Emilia Clarke, who is now famous for playing Daenerys
Targaryen on Game of Thrones. Before
that TV masterpiece, she was in this TV atrocity.
Ladies and gentleman, after careful consideration I’ve
decided, not to endorse these dinosaur movies, and hopefully so have you.
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