AGE OF DINOSAURS Is a Terrible Must-Watch
If you've happened to stumble across it on your Netflix selections, Age Of Dinosaurs has all the ingredients for a "do not stream." The cover art looks like an 8th grade Photoshop job, the rating is 2 1/2 stars, and there's a big ASYLUM tag right at the beginning of the film. That being said, I'd watch it again.
The story opens up with an operating room in which a doctor is monitoring an IV drip containing an unidentified yellow substance (likely urine) hooked up to a Komodo Dragon. From here we meet the science-loving goon who thinks everything needs "more time" and the military type roughneck who presses onward to disastrous results...so you probably know what's going to happen. They talk back and forth and all the sudden someone wheels in a dinosaur recreated with genetic flesh (which you find out later but it still won't make sense) and they hook electrodes to it and wait. Even though the two have not linked in any way, the Komodo Dragon senses the "parallelality" of the dinosaur and begins to die. People start to panic and hit buttons, science guy screams he will have someone's job for this, military guy screams "CONTINUE THE TRIAL," and miraculously levels stabilize and the dinosaur (which once again is in no way connected to the dragon) springs to life and kills everyone who isn't behind the glass. Thus begins our story.
Zoom to a grandfather and granddaughter in a car. The pithy teen and old person talk, and then she says "Mom would always get on you if the car was at a quarter tank," and I'm like "WHOA! That's his daughter?!" This is perhaps the most surprising reveal of the film. More surprising than the concept of using live dinosaurs for birthday parties, more surprising than when the crippled man suddenly stands up and walks around, and far more surprising than the lack of character development in this film.
Our main character is an out of work firefighter...who got invited to a dinosaur conference? Maybe he works security there? I think his brother/his daughter's boyfriend? (it's really hard to tell) gets them tickets. It's really not important. So then we see the head of "Genitisharp: The People are Sharp, The Future is Sharp" which would be clever if the head of the corporation's last name was Sharp, but it's not. It's Justin, so it just sounds stupid. Anyway he reveals that "Dinosaurs are back...for real!" as if he held a press conference earlier that proved to be a sham when someone poked one of his previous dinosaurs, watched it deflate, then turned to him with a finger pointed and shouted "HEY!" Then he's like "IF DINOSAURS CAN WALK, SO CAN I!" and he stands up out of his motorized wheelchair, and I kid you not, starts tap dancing.
From here on out the plot is fairly predictable, the dinosaurs get loose, the CEO is shocked and the military type guy (who I incorrectly assumed was in the military until this point) screams "SHIT HAPPENED IN JAPAN" and the whole thing turns into a shot for shot remake of the lab sequence in Jurassic Park except that movie is 20 years old and still looks better than this garbage. The dinosaurs bust out of the building eventually because they're dinosaurs and all hell breaks loose in LA. From here on out you can imagine how it plays out and you'd be right, but you'd miss out on the hilarious cornball death of their uncle/brother/boyfriend whose initial intent to "buy them time" results in riding a moped into the jaws of a dinosaur not three seconds after saying it.
There's really so much more I can say about what's wrong with this film but to do so would literally be verbalizing the film shot for shot. So let me summarize by saying you should watch it. You'll laugh...and that's about it.
