Cowboys vs Dinosaurs

After an accidental explosion at a local mine, dinosaurs emerge from the rubble to terrorize a small western town. Now, a group of gunslingers must defend their home if anyone is going to survive in a battle of cowboys versus dinosaurs.

After watching "Sharkansas Women's Prison Massacre", I needed to follow up my cheese with more cheese -- two movies about explosions unleashing prehistoric creatures who kill! And, you know what? This is the better of the two. Still terrible, but in a fun way.

Was the biggest problem the awful dinosaurs? Nope. It was trying to figure out why none of the men in this town were under 40 and none of the women were older than 25. The romantic pairings were rather creepy.

Kelcey Watson is the star of this film. His intensity and over-the-top performance is great, and I would love to see him transition from cheesy movies to bigger things. Sara Malakul Lane was also really good, and she seems to be on that edge between big things and B-movies. She's been in FHM, so her modeling is known... but then she has a spotty track record of movies that probably barely paid her. She's better than that.

The real surprise is Eric Roberts. Someone please tell me how he went from huge star to the king of D-grade movies... he really hit rock bottom with "The Dead Want Women". In this film, though, he gives a really good performance. A bit cheesy, but fitting or the movie. I suspect he was only on set one day, but he really nailed it.

There are two writers for the script of this movie. Each has produced volumes. If you combined their entire life's work, wadded it into a ball, and held it up, God would come down from Mount Jeebus to destroy it. They apparently took the script from Cowboys & Aliens (itself pretty uninspired), changed a few words, and presto. Take away the 160 million dollar budget and good actors and there you have it; Cowboys vs Dinosaurs.

There is nothing here. It's like everyone involved said "mail me my check, I'm phoning this one in." Even for SyFy, this really sucked. No amount of effort appears to have been applied at all. If they weren't making money doing this, I'm sure it would stop, but it never does. Don't ask me how they do it.

In the realm of SyFy movies, this one falls between Mega-(insert name here) and Shark-(include anything you want here). It's a total waste of time. And this from a guy who gave Robocroc a 6. The acting, the CGI, the production values, all have been thrown out the window. I don't know what happened here, but obviously something did.

If you are stuck for something to watch, and only this is on, clean the garage instead. You know it needs it anyway, and your time will have been better spent.

Or if you will, strictly for the kids (well those who don't mind a dinosaur or two!) the villains are the sheriff and his boss, a vile businessman who will do anything for himself and nothing for others. The level of acting quality is quite poor save for a reliable Eric Roberts (spends most of his time in jail) and a dark skinned actor who plays the part of Quaid (I think!) If you want a good movie for a wet rainy day this isn't it. At times its hard to think as to whether I have ever seen one as badly put together as this. Oh for the days of Cowboys and Indians (although sadly, the Indians were never the heroes of these films but the villains!).

As far as these low budget sub SyFy films go, this one isn't too bad.

The CGI isn't great, I don't think Amblin/Legendary Entertainment will be losing sleep over this as competition for the Jurassic Park franchise; yet the film is good fun if not taken too seriously (and if you take a film called Cowboys vs Dinosaurs' seriously then you deserve a poke in the eye with a blunt stick. There are worse ways to pass an hour or so if you can tolerate the dreadful dialogue, ludicrous plot and acting. Most of the actresses seem to have come straight off the 'casting couch' as I seriously doubt they got in the film for their acting abilities.

I don't think there will be too many sequels thankfully.

only if you really want to totally waste an hour and a half of your life watching poorly written, poorly acted crap. Dumbest thing I ever forced myself to sit through. It is an interesting idea, but deserved better work from writers, producers, casting and actors. The borrowed raptors from other films did their parts as one might expect, but the stage make-up of the deceased may have been done by a seven-year-old girl.