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T-Rex - Back to the Cretaceous (IMAX)

T-Rex - Back to the Cretaceous (IMAX)

List Price: $14.97
Your Price: $13.47
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Are they kidding?
Review: I went to see T-Rex thinking I would gain a little knowledge about dinosaurs, but was completely wrong. Within the first five minutes, and seeing about 10 closeups of the girl's face, I was counting down the time until it was over. I almost started laughing in the theater when the girl ran along side the T-Rex after another egg-stealing dinosaur yelling "Leave that egg alone! Thats not your egg!" Did they think that this senario was realistic?

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: DESERVES MINUS 5 STARS! SAVE YOUR MONEY!
Review: Picture if you will excited little me hunched in front of the TV set playing "T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous" on my DVD player. The film starts with a boring story of a neglected daughter whose dad is a paleontologist...oops, I nod off here for a while, then the story continues as I watch the time counter on the DVD ticking past 20 minutes, then 25 minutes and I'm thinking, "HEY! WHERE ARE THE FREAKING DINOSAURS, MAN?" Next I pick up a magazine...still waiting for DINOSAURS then HOLD ON! There's a couple of seconds of dino action then...THE CREDITS? This movie is a complete waste of time! There are probably about two minutes of dinosaur action tops among the boring, modern-day boring (did I say that already) incredibly boring story! .... This is really a total [disappointment].

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: DESERVES MINUS 5 STARS! SAVE YOUR MONEY!
Review: Picture if you will excited little me hunched in front of the TV set playing "T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous" on my DVD player. The film starts with a boring story of a neglected daughter whose dad is a paleontologist...oops, I nod off here for a while, then the story continues as I watch the time counter on the DVD ticking past 20 minutes, then 25 minutes and I'm thinking, "HEY! WHERE ARE THE FREAKING DINOSAURS, MAN?" Next I pick up a magazine...still waiting for DINOSAURS then HOLD ON! There's a couple of seconds of dino action then...THE CREDITS? This movie is a complete waste of time! There are probably about two minutes of dinosaur action tops among the boring, modern-day boring (did I say that already) incredibly boring story! .... This is really a total [disappointment].

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Are they kidding?
Review: Stick to the Discovery Channel series on Dinosaurs and Prehistoric beasts. They are much more informational and done much better. This is a story about a girl's desire to please and impress her father rather than about dinosaurs. The actual segments with dinosaurs in them are fleeting. It attempts to make a point about proving and disproving theories but that gets a little lost in the story line and is never really clarified.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Disappointment
Review: Stick to the Discovery Channel series on Dinosaurs and Prehistoric beasts. They are much more informational and done much better. This is a story about a girl's desire to please and impress her father rather than about dinosaurs. The actual segments with dinosaurs in them are fleeting. It attempts to make a point about proving and disproving theories but that gets a little lost in the story line and is never really clarified.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: One more proof that special effects don't make the movie
Review: The best word for this 3D dinosaur romp is: b-o-r-i-n-g. I actually fell asleep part way through. The 3D effects are very good, but you get over that quickly. The story isn't just weak -it's non existent. The science is laughable. I found myself fascinated by how many times the pimples on the teen-age heroine's face moved around. The are VERY prominent in 3D, and provided evidence that the live filming took place over a number of weeks. Your money and time would both be better spent on that root-canal you've been putting off.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: T-Rex - Dumb and Dumber
Review: This boring IMAX movie scared our 3-year-old so much that we had to leave before it ended. Less plot than a 1950s drive-in monster movie, but the same concept: human vs. monster, accented by dark creepy scenes giving you the feeling that a deadly beast is hiding behind the next tree. We expected interesting visual science, not this movie that may forever distort our son's feelings about nature and the unknown. Bah!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: T-Rex - Dumb and Dumber
Review: This boring IMAX movie scared our 3-year-old so much that we had to leave before it ended. Less plot than a 1950s drive-in monster movie, but the same concept: human vs. monster, accented by dark creepy scenes giving you the feeling that a deadly beast is hiding behind the next tree. We expected interesting visual science, not this movie that may forever distort our son's feelings about nature and the unknown. Bah!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: IMAX 3-D viewed as DVD 2-D
Review: This is one of the few IMAX "educational" films to have a storytelling presentation. It's 3-D was well shot for the IMAX format (70mm film). An IMAX 1.44 format is close enough to a standard 1.33 TV video, that it should translate to DVD well. It also comes with a "making of" short featurette.

The film centers around the daughter of a paleontologist, who's induced imagination brings the museum's displays to life. A few (good) educational encounters with historic figures, and realistic (though brief) prehistoric lifeforms, are interwoven by a father/daughter storyline and a contrived, disoriented, hallucinatory run through the museum.

So, why only 2 stars? An attempt to add storytelling to education, without being firmly committed to either (or both), leaves everyone expecting more than this film provides. Little boys will find very little dinosaur sightings here, along with too little action to hold their attention. Little girls might identify with the lead character, but it's not likely to have enough storyline to be their favorite DVD. Adults will find the children's "edu-drama" well under their heads (something you'd like to show your child, but too dull to watch by yourself). This is not at all a bad film, but there's just too little of the good stuff.

Film fans will be disappointed that the well done 3-D isn't presented here...even though the film is only 45 mins long, and the DVD could easily have included a field sequential 3-D "bonus" version, which would've sold the DVD the same way 3-D sold this IMAX film in theaters. This film was written to be shot in 3-D, and technically executed flawlessly for IMAX 3-D presentation. I'd buy a 3-D version of this DVD in a heart-beat!

IMAX is HUGE, so the impressive size is lost on a TV...and 70mm film versus DVD quality is like illustrating an atomic blast with a BB gun.

The only thing that could be of value is if there was a thorough "making of" focusing of the rules of 3-D filmmaking (and IMAX) versus standard filmmaking, which would pull in the 3-D lovers and film students.


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