According To JURASSIC ISLAND Dinosaurs Aren't Our Greatest Prehistoric Threat

I love a good B horror movie. The camp, the cheese, the bad visual effects, sometimes these things all combine to make a truly hilarious movie. Jurassic Island tried really hard, and honestly got pretty close to being a decent one, but at the end of the day it was forgettable due to its remarkable lack of dinosaurs and bland characters. 

I think the most egregious mistake this movie made was its distinct lack of dinosaurs and especially their threat level. We frequently see humans easily escape these dinosaurs and sure, maybe you could hide from a tyrannosaurus rex in a tent if it’s busy eating someone else, but do you really think you could outrun a velociraptor? There is a far greater threat from the leeches on the island that effectively turn you into a zombie from a single bite and can seemingly get onto someone at any given time. They must have a symbiotic relationship with the dinosaurs because only one non zombie person gets eaten by a dinosaur this entire movie. For a movie with dinosaurs on the cover and dinosaurs featured in the trailer you would just expect a lot more dinosaurs.

Speaking of the dinosaurs though, they looked hilariously terrible. The t-rex was tiny, like its head was the size of a person tiny. There was no way it would be able to eat someone in a single bit and there was definitely no way it could just step on someone. All the dinosaurs looked like they were a person in a suit with a layer of visual effects put over them, and I admire that level of dedication. However, this did make all of the dinosaur movements look super weird. The velociraptor hands did not move at all, it looked like they were frozen in place so they were running around making little raptor guns. It looked like at times they tried to make it look less like a suit, but all they accomplished was stretching the legs and bodies in really weird ways. This was a really small team for all the visual effects, but I probably would have chosen to commit one way or the other. My absolute favorite visual effect was when the dinosaurs did finally attack someone a red spurt of blood would pop out, but it looked like a visual effect made in MS Paint, it was hilarious. 

There were a few consistency problems, but hey who hasn’t forgotten they were wearing a backpack in a scene so that throughout a conversation you can see what parts were filmed at different times? We also had people supposedly get mauled and eaten by dinosaurs in one scene, and in later scenes their body is discovered completely intact and their clothes not even torn with maybe a scratch on the face. Overall, these issues are really to be expected from a movie of this quality, but it does still lose points for having a long conversation about one kind of dinosaur proving the researcher's scientific theory and then never mentioning it ever again. Really thought it was going to be a bit of foreshadowing, but that turned out to be a bridge too far. There was also apparently a monster in the water around the island that liked destroying boats, but turns out if you’re a protagonist from a movie it won’t bother you at all. The characters couldn’t even properly describe the thing and I was really looking forward to seeing it, but I guess the budget ran out.

Ok, let’s imagine for a moment you are an army veteran who just got home from a tour of duty. Your father is missing and you are launching a full scale rescue to extract him from a mysterious island. You know your grandfather disappeared on this island along with all but one of his team members who tells you there is nothing but death on the island. What kind of arsenal do you bring with you? A few guns, machetes, knives, maybe some grenades if you can get them? How about only a box cutter? That is the decision made by our main heroine, she brings a box cutter as literally the only weapon we see her use in this whole movie outside of rocks and tree branches she picks up. One inch of blade is apparently all that was deemed necessary to protect herself and her team. The nerdy scientist guy brought a better knife with him! I mean it wasn’t much better, I don’t think it was even the size of an average camp knife, but still! The movie poster features two people with tactical gear and guns who I am pretty sure are not any of the actors in this movie, why in the world were no weapons brought?

I did, overall, have fun watching this movie with a group of people. The acting wasn’t great, but it was better than sounding like they were reading lines off a teleprompter. At some point they make the completely unexplained decision to take the map of the island, put it in a clear plastic holder, and then have characters wear it like the weirdest piece of bling you’ve ever seen. It was so bizarre and at no point did anyone mention why they did it. My theory is that either unfolding and refolding it proved too tedious, or the sound team were really annoyed at the sound of this paper crinkling all the time. Either way, it was both peculiar and hilarious. They did end with one of the zombie leeches crawling around the bathroom as our protagonist takes a shower, so maybe there will be the most unrelated sequel you can think of in our future, but most likely not. Either way, if you want to check it out for a laugh, make sure you do it with friends because I can’t imagine watching this one alone. I give this movie a 4.