Jurassic Raptor

So wow seeing Eric Roberts I kinda expected this to be a better movie.

Yes I have seen and own the actual Carnosaur trilogy.

Also seen and own many Roger Corman movies.

This is well below average for those.

The biggest problem is they recycle quite a few scenes from earlier Carnos mostly from 3.

Even the ship scene lmao pretty obvious.

There is also a really bad one where a Bobcat turns into an older forklift.

All told Eric does good Corbin way over does it.

The various models and b movie actors do fine for what it is.

The FX are on par with similar movies using miniatures and such.

There is gratuitous blood and gore even for this type of movie and some quick nudity and clear sexualization if that matters to you.

Before I begin, let me just say the film is bad. There's no need in saying why. It's just bad. Bad writing, directing, special effects, acting, you name it. BUT the movie does have two things going for it: the briefly exposed breasts of the beautiful and surgically-enhanced Lorissa McComas, and the star power of one Eric Roberts. I mean it, how can you not enjoy an Eric Roberts movie? Yeah the movie may be crap on a stick, but Roberts hams scenes up to the point you just have to laugh. I rent every Eric Roberts movie that I can find. The guy is classic. Years from now people will remember Eric as the king of straight-to-video and it's a title he really deserves. Anybody who can act with a straight face in a movie that has a muppet for a raptor is a genius.

My brother-in-law and his wife brought the movie over one night to watch on video. This should have given me the first clue that it would be horrible. It was. From the very first frame to the last this movie is terrible. It does not even quite register as a "B" movie. Maybe an N or a P. One of the worst 5 movies I've ever seen. From the rubber raptor-on-a-stick to the still-breathing corpses in the car to the beyond horrible closing lines, this movie isn't worth watching if you've received it for free.

Skip this one altogether--unless you want to play Mystery Science Theatre with your friends, it will provide good ammunition.

The only reason there is a question mark in parenthesis is NOT because I haven't seen every film released in 2001 thus far. It's because this film was only made PARTLY in 2001. The rest of it was stolen from Roger Corman's OTHER dinosaur films, Carnosaur 1-3.

I have a confession to make. "Carnosaur 2" is perhaps one of my favorite B-movies. It borrows so much from James Cameron's "Aliens" it's not even funny. But I love it. I can't explain exactly why. It just WORKS for me. I liked the sets, I liked the cinematography, I liked how they borrowed from "Aliens". It's all a bit ironic that Cameron at one point was an understudy of Corman's, with films like "Battle Beyond the Stars" (1980).

I own the Carnosaur trilogy on DVD, and the most I can say for part one is that it has moments. The most I can say for the third is that it took me five years to find it watchable.

Now we have "Raptor," which does NOT continue that series. Instead, it borrows ENTIRE scenes from the Carnosaur Trilogy and BUILDS a movie around it. And somehow Roger Corman was able to get Eric Roberts and Corbin Bernsen to do it. Now, I'm not saying either Roberts or Bernsen are at any kind of career high. But they were both at one point what could be called RESPECTABLE actors. Not here. Sure, actors react to effects they won't even see while filming all the time. Here, however, they are reacting to mismatched footage from films that are between five and eight years old. There's even a sherrif whose costume was modeled directly after a character in "Carnosaur 1." Apparently it made too much sense to get the original guy back.

When "Raptor" was announced I was a wee bit excited. I was however disappointed when Corman said that they'd be using the old dinosaur models from "Carnosaur." Apparently Corman decided after this interview was conducted that he wouldn't even do that. And its not that he couldn't find an FX crew to do it. The script for this was clearly written keeping in mind that the story had to be built around pre-existing stock footage.

Don't compare this to Ed Wood. Ed did better than this. At least he only used the stock footage of Bela once, in one film. There are ways of incorporating stock footage into a movie, and "Raptor" takes this frowned-upon technique to a new low. Even if you liked "Carnosaur 3: Primal Species," stay away from "Raptor."

Answer: When it's two movies edited together.

I saw this on the video shelf and thought, "Oh, good. Another low-budget dinosaur movie. Haven't seen one of those since Carnosaur 3." So I rented it and sat down to watch it. The first scene opens with three teenagers riding around the desert in a jeep. "Well," I thought, "This is sort of like that scene in Carnosaur." Then I realized, it WAS that scene from Carnosaur. At first, I thought they gave me the wrong tape, but this was a scene from the middle of Carnosaur, not the beginning. Actually, it was my favorite scene from Carnosaur. Now I was seriously disappointed. Instead of watching a new dinosaur movie, I had been tricked into watching clips from two old dinosaur movies edited together. The other reviewers of this movie miss one point in their otherwise on-target reviews. The movie doesn't just use stock footage in place of special effects; it exists for the sole purpose of using stock footage in place of special effects. The script was only added to string together scenes from the first two carnosaur movies. Every line of dialogue exists only to explain why these completely unrelated events are popping up like plastic gophers in a Chuck-e-Cheese game. If you want dinosaurs, rent the Carnosaur movies again.