Rise of the Dinosaurs (2013) User Reviews

too flawed to really enjoyable

[quantumcat · 3/10 · 29 July 2013]

What do we have: -really REALLY bad acting -really REALLY bad editing -really REALLY bad sfx -really REALLY bad writing

Bad was to be expected. but the really REALLY bad, took my by surprise. I have weakness for bad monster movies, some, like dinocroc, frankenfish, abominable, shark attack, komodo, to name a few that turn out to be quite enjoyable. Unfortunateky, this one isn't. I managed to watch it till the end, so it's not a complete loss, but this one has too many flaws.

The only enjoyable performance was by Micheal Worth as an absent minded, offset, hippie professor. The others have the emotional range of an ironing board...they're not even trying.

The writing doesn't help either -unfortunately, because of the wooden acting, the dialogues fail to be funny. There isn't any real chemistry between any of the actors, the lead is as inspiring as a leader as a crash test dummy, the antagonist took acting lessons from Jar-Jar Binks, and the others walk around as if a blind man gave directions.

More so, a T-Rex can be easily killed with a pea-shooter -though later on they use an RPG -you gotta have an explosion as a climax -explosions always work as a climax. right? Smart & Intelligent velociraptors run into a hail of bullets like mindless zombies, and the military rescue subplot seems as if someone thought that if it worked for predator, it will work for this movie. Sorry to disappoint you.

I mean the story is all over the place, terrorist commie guerrillas, hostage hot female bio-chemist, colonel vs. suit at hq, bio-chemical virus / agent being released, the nutty professor, the rescue team, the history between commie guerrilla leader and the rescue team-leader, and then there are the dinosaurs..they are...well just there.

On top of that, the special effects are truly bad -in fact stop motion in 1933 didn't have such jerky movements that for this budget they should have concentrated on fewer dinosaurs and betters animations. The models aren't that bad, but they look badly integrated, unfinished and badly animated. Not to imagine the fake blood and fake muzzle flashes.

It makes you wonder who gives the go ahead for this. Have they read the script? Have they any knowledge of movie (making)? Do they care?

I never understand why the writer(s) feel the need to put so much into what is -plain and simple- the ten little ... I mean the "and then there were none" (to use the more pc title) plot trick. All you need is 9 tourists and one pilot that crash into a remote place, ruled by dino's. The professor can be used for exposition and you have a pack of raptors hunting the 11 men and women. Picking them off one by one, climaxing in a showdown between (wo)man and alpha (fe)male.with some movies - especially monster movies- I prefer the KISS approach. Keep It Simple Stupid. oh well...

Bad one

[SanteeFats · 3/10 · 9 June 2013]

Another typical Syfy movie channel show. First of all this appears to be an American armed forces mission yet there are numerous foreign accents that are so obvious that they don't even try to hide them. Then there is the military team with all the older guys that are part of the team. I am not against older soldiers but I don't think that they would go on a drop mission where they might slow the unit down. The smarmy bad guy is also typical of the Syfy network movies. He seems really evil but is just a clown who overacts. The dinosaurs have no reason to exist outside of the movie plot. There is not even a decent explanation for their existence. The fact that there are enough prey species to support the predators is ludicrous to say the least. Enough dinosaurs to have a viable population would show up on the satellites and be investigated. The weirdo they find studying the dinosaurs is only there to provide some continuity and of course info. Why do I waste my time with these movies? Well I hope to find a decent one from time to time.

A major Jurassic flop if there ever was one

[TheLittleSongbird · 2/10 · 27 May 2013]

I hate much of SyFy's movies with a passion and have made no secret of it. There is however something compulsively watchable in how bad they are, and they can be somewhat entertaining as a result when they're not insulting your intelligence, and it is interesting to see if they ever do make a halfway decent movie. The good news is that not all their movies are terrible, there are some watchable ones but essentially seeing one of those is like a glimmer of good in a sea of mostly terrible.

Rise of the Dinosaurs/Jurassic Attack is not one of the watchable SyFy movies though. It is a long way from their worst, but that doesn't stop it from being a major flop in so many ways. Its redeeming qualities are small and there are only two, one is some nice scenery and a fun performance from Michael Worth that is the definition of "diamond-in-the-rough".

Only Worth really makes an impression in the acting stakes though. It's a shame though because Corin Nemac and Vernon Wells have far too limited screen-time to really save the movie, and they have proved themselves to be decent actors. I wouldn't say that Gary Stretch is a terrible lead, but he is rather uninspiring and he doesn't stand out amongst the many actors in this particular type of role. The rest of the actors badly over-compensate, Israel Saez De Miguel especially acts like he is in a pantomime, complete with accents that really grate. There is no chemistry at all between them, and it really is a waste when the actors don't look as though they care a bit for their situation and just go through the motions instead. You'd think that with good characters and dialogue that it would help a little.

Actually, the characters and dialogue were really not up to snuff and seemed to be contributing towards why the acting was so bad. Rise of the Dinosaurs/Jurassic Attack doesn't give us any time to let us connect with the characters, they are not developed well at all and instead of having any charm or likability they are irritating instead. The worst case is the villain Marquez, I found him incredibly annoying and there were even instances where I questioned whether there was any need for him at all other than SyFy movies seemingly having to have a villain in some shape or form. Like with the characters, the dialogue wastes no time in using every cliché in the book and the whole script just reads of an endless list of cliché after cliché after cliché. The banter and arguments are wildly overplayed, probably an attempt by the actors to give credibility to the characters and the writing. People may say that it was a sign of them enjoying themselves, but actually seeing the overall standard of their acting(over-compensating and completely indifferent to their situations) I find that hard to believe.

The story is very little better. It is one that I have seen in variations so many times in so many movies that I just know what is going to happen and it takes away from any enjoyment to be had. People may like the little homages/references, there's always one or two lurking about with SyFy, but others will find that they come too late when they are this close to turning the television set off. I belong in the latter group, and I only didn't turn off the television, no matter how tempting, because I don't believe in judging a movie without seeing the whole thing. There is no fun because it's predictable, the dialogue is terrible and there's a lot of overacting going on, there are no suspense or thrills because again there's nothing exciting or new, the pacing is all-over-the-map(with scenes like the attacks rushed and the basic backbone of the story gets dull after a while) and the attacks are like watching a really bad cartoon. Even worse, it is very under-explained and illogical, characters' motivations, various scenes and plot points are touched upon but never expanded or developed. I constantly found myself asking questions like how Roxton lived with dinosaurs without food or being eaten, or why a member of the army squad is wearing earrings. The scene where a dinosaur is shot from three metres away really tipped the iceberg in terms of sheer idiocy.

Scenery aside, Rise of the Dinosaurs/Jurassic Attack is made poorly. The camera work never rises above average-at-best television quality and the editing is choppy, especially in any of the scenes involving the dinosaurs, but it was in the special effects where things really got pear-shaped in this regard. The dinosaurs are some of the worst-rendered I think I've ever seen, looking really artificial in design and colour and as though they had been thrown into the movie at very last minute. I know it's low-budget, and I knew to expect these flaws, but at least look as though some effort at all was made, with this movie I didn't see very much. This is particularly true in the attacks, especially with the soldiers, where my aforementioned bad cartoon comparison applies. The music is generic and unmemorable and either doesn't fit with the atmosphere or is too obvious.

Overall, the scenery and Worth are good enough but the rest contribute towards a real failure of a dinosaur movie. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Even The Asylum Would Be Embarrassed By This Thing

[Michael_Elliott · 12 May 2013]

Rise of the Dinosaurs (2013)

1/2 (out of 4)

A special units squad is sent into a jungle to rescue a female hostage but on their way back the helicopter they're riding in crashes. Soon the group realize that their in a mysterious land where dinosaurs still rule and like the taste of human flesh. Originally titled JURASSIC ATTACK, it's clear that this film was simply made so it could cash in on the re-release of Steven Spielberg's JURASSIC PARK but there's no question which is the better picture. Sadly this here is so bad that even a company like The Asylum would be embarrassed by it. There's really nothing here that would make the viewer think that anyone involved with the picture had any intention of making it good. The CGI effects are beyond horrible but I'm sure most are expecting this. It's strange that no matter what type of dinosaur we're looking at they're always pretty much the same size. Just take a look at one awful scene where a dinosaur eats a man and just wait till you see how much blood comes pouring out of its mouth. If the CGI dinosaur looks back what's even worse is the horrid blood coming from its mouth. There's really no drama, no adventure, no laughs, no shocks or anything else that you might expect in a film like this. It's clearly just a rip-off of THE LAND THAT TIME FORGET, which its author gets a mention here. There's even a joke aimed at the Spielberg movie but I'm going to guess that most would have hit the stop button by then. Usually these types of movies can reach a so bad it's good level but this here never comes close to that. The best advice is to just stay away or at least not watch it until dinosaurs are walking the Earth again.

Cheesy Grade C schlock that's fatally undermined by shoddy special effects and formula script

[Woodyanders · 5/10 · 22 February 2016]

An elite commando unit must fight for survival in a remote South African jungle that's populated by lethal predatory dinosaurs. While director Anthony Fankhauser keeps things moving along at a brisk pace and stages the plentiful action with rip-roaring panache, this film alas falters because of the painfully cruddy CGI dinosaurs who aren't remotely convincing for a minute (the digital blood and muzzle flashes are likewise pretty lousy and look super fake throughout). Fortunately, the bulk of the cast do their best with the silly material, with particular praiseworthy contributions from Gary Stretch as the rugged Captain John Steakley, Natascha Berg as foxy biochemist Angeles Ibanez, Alicia Ziegler as the feisty Sarah Haldeman, Corin Nemec as the hard-nosed Colonel Carter, Vernon Wells as the jerky Agent Grimaldi, and Michael Worth as the flaky Professor Roxton. Unfortunately, Israel Saez de Miguel hams it up atrociously as cackling evil no-count baddie Marquez. Moreover, Rafael Jordan's by-the-numbers script staunchly adheres to a straight-down-the-line predictable trajectory whereby it's really obvious from the get-go as far as which specific characters are going to survive in the long run, which in turn negates any genuine tension this movie might have had. A strictly so-so diversion at best.

Surviving and escaping a hidden prehistoric world with Natascha Berg

[Wuchakk · 5/10 · 27 May 2019]

A special ops squad led by Captain Steakley (Gary Stretch) executes a mission in the South American jungle to rescue a hostage scientist (Natascha Berg), but also take captive an anti-capitalist Latino (Israel Sáez de Miguel). As they escape, their copter crash lands in a 60-mile forested crater that contains a prehistoric world cut off from the rest of the earth. Michael Worth plays the madcap professor who's been living alone in the lost world for years.

Originally titled "Jurassic Attack," "Rise of the Dinosaurs" (2013) is comparable to mockbuster flicks by The Asylum, like "Isle of the Dead" (2016), "King of the Lost World" (2005) and "The Land that Time Forgot" (2009). The worst thing about it is the CGI: While the dinosaurs look good enough for a low budget movie, the lighting and motion don't always mesh with what's on the rest of the screen. And the blood dripping from the t-rex's mouth is hopeless. But with a cheap knock-off like this, did you expect any better?

The movie works as survival situation with a fairly interesting group of protagonists and one antagonist. On the female front, Natascha is jaw-dropping from beginning to end in modest short shorts while Alicia Ziegler is decent, not to mention kick-axx. Michael Worth's professor comes across as a hippie-ish academic who has found his paradise. Even though Israel Sáez de Miguel overdoes the Che-like militarist, the script surprisingly gives him a good scene where he supports his communistic principles and mocks capitalism.

The film runs 1 hour and 23 minutes and was shot in Belize.

GRADE: C+

cmon its ok

[saskpareki · 5/10 · 23 August 2020]

OK the dinosaurs in the movie are terrible its worst than playing in PS2 games, they seem absolutely fake, but get over it.

It has a nice story , it develops nice i liked the movie and how it goes. give it a 5

Attacking they are

[kosmasp · 3/10 · 3 October 2021]

I think as a teenager I might have thought this was quite fun to watch I reckon. I can't say for sure, but I did like the mercenaries on an ... well adventure sort of thing. Which is what is going on here in some way, shape or form.

The Dinosaurs are really bad CGI .. I mean there may be worse CGI out there, but I doubt you will care. Unless you consider the budget this was made on. We have a former Mad Max actor in this, which may excite you or not. You may also care that there are actually some small/minor acting moments - genuine moments that is. Of course mostly, this is not about the acting, but about seeing the big animals roam the screen and the mayhem they cause.

The special effects (not CGI) are not that bad actually - again considering the budget and all that. Overall this will not find too many who will actually care.

Worst ive seen

[LetsReviewThat26 · 3/10 · 20 September 2023]

It's saying something when you call one of the low budget syfy movies the worst, but Jurassic attack fits the box. In this world dinosaurs co exist with humans for some reason. Some people go through the forest and a t rex eats them. Skip to some soldiers that are tasked with going there to rescue some hostage's. But plane crashes and they end up stuck there trying to service the many Dino's and the crazy sciencetist that lives there. The two massive problems that this so bad are one. The CGI is really below average. Almost copy and pasted and the limbs don't even move right and two. The casts accents seem to go between who they are and who they are supposed to be which is annoying. Overall Jurassic attack is missable, but watchable if it's what your looking for.

A horrible movie!!

[sauravjoshi85 · 1/10 · 3 April 2019]

Now what to write about this movie as there is nothing to be written. This is a very weirdly written, acted and directed movie and VFX is another torture. This movie offers nothing and is too predictable. A hot biochemist, a hot army officer, 06 to 07 wooden faces army men, an overacting villain. The army chief vs agent. a crater full of dinosaurs and yes all of a sudden you will find a professor who is a famous biologist had written loads of books who is living in the crater for the last 5 years and his clothes are intact, means seriously. This movie is an epic example of a torture.

Out of the Crator

[ouimetholmes · 4/10 · 23 January 2019]

Despite having a crazy guy whose trying way to hard, and goes by two different names, I can still choose my favorite part and it's the fool that brought a paintball gun to a "blank bullets" fight.

A Complete Triumph

[icaptainchaos · 10/10 · 26 April 2019]

I have seen a lot of films featuring dinosaurs and other prehistoric things, and this is without doubt, one of the finest examples of an action/adventure film that I have ever seen.

The special effects are stunning, the acting is borderline Oscar material, the story is epic and the ending is one of the most moving I have experienced in my long film-watching career. Oh, and the location looks incredible, too.

The dinosaur animation is better than anything that I have ever seen - so realistic that whenever one of them died, I was very very upset, but it was okay because there were always some more dinosaurs just around the corner.

The acting was brilliant, conveying exactly the right amount of tension and emotion that a film such as this should. I was sad to see one of the operatives get his throat cut within five seconds of being on screen, as I could tell just by those few seconds, that he knew EXACTLY how to act whilst being murdered.

And what can I say about the costumes - whoever organised the wardrobe ought to be praised endlessly because they had JUST the right amount of genuine clothes that perfectly conveyed the location and situation that they were in.

Anyway - apologies for typing such a lengthy review, but all I can say is - if you can buy this from Amazon or anywhere else, do it - you will NOT be disappointed!!!

Too much cheese to make it enjoyable

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 6/10 · 14 May 2013]

When their mission to capture a renegade general and a kidnapped scientist goes awry, a team of soldiers learn they've stumbled onto an ancient valley filled with live dinosaurs and must try to get away before they all fall victim to the creatures.

This turned out to be quite an enjoyable effort that could be fun once it overlooked the cheesiness. There's a huge amount of that spread throughout here, once again featured from the absolutely atrocious and ridiculous CGI used for the dinosaurs that don't have any sort of consistent movement beyond three general attack behaviors throughout as well as the constant size discrepancies in the scenes and totally ridiculous-looking animation effects for the attacks. While these look really bad, and there's a couple problematic story lines in play that don't make any sort of sense at all, there's some fun here with a lot more action than expected, including a rather fun takeover of the rebel hideout in the jungle which devolves into a series of fun firefights that are pretty enjoyable. As well, with the creatures continuously on the group that leaves for plenty of high-quality confrontations and kill scenes to make up for it's shortcomings. Overall, this one wasn't too bad even with a few flaws.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

Stupid but watchable

[drystyx · 3/10 · 23 September 2021]

I think my review title sums it up. It's very watchable, this story of soldiers against dangerous Jurassic beasts.

But it's very stupid. The dialog is corny and it's quite contrived.

The worst and stupidest part of the stupidity is the characters. The "bad guy doing good things" is a cliche that you don't want to try to believe in real life. A human monster doesn't do "nice". The motivations here are even more unbelievable than the rest of it, which says a lot.

The only characters with any possible believable motivation are the minor characters who get scratched out of existence. That's another Hollywood cliche, the sermon about "hey, we'll kill anyone you can relate to, just to keep you depressed, nyah, nyah".

However, it is watchable in a sort of "so bad it's good sort of way".

Typically poor

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 26 July 2019]

JURASSIC ATTACK is a typically poor CGI dinosaur flick that's only good for those most forgiving of viewers. The story involves a bunch of assorted characters and soldiers heading off into the jungle (the filming locations in Belize are a highlight here) and finding themselves falling victim to various rampaging dinosaurs, the obligatory Tyrannosaurus rex being the main beastie here. Cast-wise, we get stretched-face Gary Stretch (whose most memorable on-screen performance was in DEAD MAN'S SHOES) as the hero and COMMANDO's Vernon Wells as a shady character. THE CGI is awful, but at least there's a lot of mindless action to keep your mind off the predictability of it all.

"You've got to be kidding me!"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 3/10 · 1 February 2022]

Apart from the attractive Belize scenery and the great Vernon Wells (who isn't in it enough) there is nothing worthwhile about 'Jurassic Attack'. The story basically goes back to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Lost World' with nothing new or interesting to say and the CGI dinosaurs are very poor quality, totally unconvincing. Apart from Mr. Wells the cast, particularly the ones playing the military, are uniformly forgettable. Mr Wells should have taught Michael Worth (the scientist) and Israel Sáez de Miguel (the terrorist) how to over act with style and conviction. A disappointing movie for us fans of dinosaur flicks.

Off the Grid

[nogodnomasters · 6/10 · 20 January 2018]

This is also marketed under the title "Jurassic Attack." In our opening scene a plane goes down in the land of the dinosaurs. We then jump five years later as a team of military men are on a rescue mission. Their goal is to save a kidnapped chemical-biologist from terrorists in the fictional country of Verdi in the Amazon basin. The bad guys have developed a new chemical or biological agent that can be launched in a rocket.

That mission would take The Expendables 2 hours to complete, but ours does it in under ten minutes, and unfortunately a bit sloppy as their CG helicopter gets shot down by a CG RPG only to land where they will be hunted by CG raptors and a CG T-Rex. In addition to having to find their way out of the jungle, they have with them the terrorist leader and meet a professor who is studying the dinosaurs. He would rather see them dead too. Meanwhile back at headquarters two very bad actors are arguing over the next step of the mission.

The dinosaurs, helicopter, gun fire, flames were all Asylum grade CG, if that good. The acting was hit and miss, with it mostly being a miss. Alicia Ziegler and Natascha Berg provide the token eye candy.

Looked like more of a kids movie if they can get the rating down to PG-13.

Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. Rated "R" for man eating dinosaurs. Minor language such as "being a d***."