T-Rex 3D

Nothing to really say about this movie except that I remember having seen it. I was scrolling through Brett Leonard's filmography after having watched his 1995 magnum opus Virtuosity and the title jumped out at me. I remember my mom shouting, "Back to the Cretaceous!" pretty much any time the topic of dinosaurs came up for a good few years after seeing this. I guess the phrase really struck her fancy.

The reviews here are pretty negative. Probably they are correct in that the film isn't very good. I was only 11 when I saw it at the IMAX at Navy Pier, now sadly closed for good due to the pandemic. Pretty much all I remember are those sweeping shots of the desert that open the film--quite effective in large-format 3D. I knew that the movie wasn't as good as Jurassic Park, and the effects were quite cheesy, but due to the short running time and the 3D gimmick I basically viewed it as something of a combination of one of those videos you would watch in science class to fill time while your teacher recovered from a hangover and a theme park show, like the T2-3D: Battle Across Time at Universal Studios. Let's face it, you don't expect stellar acting or solid storytelling from either of those subgenres.

I guess the one thing this has over the Spielberg movie is that it knows which Mesozoic period the T-Rex lived in.

If you haven't yet seen an IMAX 3D film this is the one to watch!

Ally (Liz Stauber) works in the natural history museum and wants to be a paleontologist like her Dad (Peter Horton). When her Dad returns from a dig with what she believes could be a T-Rex egg, a mishap leads to toxic fumes escaping from the 'egg' which Ally accidentally breathes, taking her back in time into a fantastic example of the IMAX 3D experience through her hallucinatory journey.

The 3D effects are stunning, from the archaeologists chipping away at the rocks apparently sat on your knee to the amazing close-ups of the pre-historic creatures as they appear just inches from your face!

If, like me, you feel that the average film is too long, then you'll love this. At around 45 minutes, it's more like a long TV program than a movie so there's no chance of boredom setting in, and the continuous 3D effects throughout will leave you grinning with awe and enjoyment.

Sure, it isn't Jurassic Park, but for a short, and presumeably low budget movie with a relatively unknown cast, the effects are very good indeed and the story is simple, but nice.

This film really needs to be viewed as it was intended to be though, in 3D, so that the effects come to life and engross you into feeling you are there.

An IMAX 3D must see!!

I won't repeat what others have so correctly said about this movie. I only wish to respond to an assertion that this movie is one that might only be enjoyed by children under 6. I took my two boys (5 and 3) to see this movie so they could see dinosaurs roaming the large IMAX screen. Instead we saw a slack-jawed teenage girl and her father walking around a museum. I don't think many dinosaur-loving 6 and unders would even like this movie. BIG DISAPPOINTMENT!!!

No, not the absolute best movie that could have been made given the resources available to the film makers, but definitely a different approach for a relatively new format - i.e. 3D IMAX size. Compared to some the things that had been done by Douglas Trumbull for the likes of Universal at a very high budget, this motion picture was quite passable for a production done on the cusp of the CGI era. And, IMAX had a tendency to hire actors who were capable of telling the story rather than distracting from the ultimate goal of education.

Let me warn you that the subject matter is educational and meant to evoke some of the possible theories and realities of palaeontology. Much of what IMAX produced for decades filled in the scientific genre of big screen learning before the Discovery Channel had hit its stride. The producers were very limited by the size of the equipment and the resultant technologies needed to bring this very expensive experience to the very large screen. These days, of course, you can do a 3D motion picture using a film camera that practically fits in the palm of the hand.

Now on to something I'll bet very few folks recognize in the story line. Listen to Ally's experience in the museum, and some of you may realize that she is either a full blown diabetic or somewhere on the edge. Many kids have this problem, and it's a real limiting factor when you go out there on a professional dig where it's possible to get lost in the canyons of the west when being overtaken by low blood sugar. It clearly explains why her father is reticent to take her on a dig. Despite his seeming distraction with work, he really does care about his daughter's well being.

Finally, I want to thank the film makers for the location of their shoot. Anyone who dares to travel the badlands of Alberta, Canada, will not regret taking a trip to Drumheller to see the world's greatest palaeontology museum, The Royal Tyrell. We've never seen anything that gets near to the quality of displays and historical information as this amazing organization. Both my wife and I have been to all the filming sites used in the motion picture, including the preparation rooms (minus the little changes they made for the film). It brought back some incredible adventures to our memory. It's the only place I know of where a walk of 100 feet will transport you one million years into the past.

...would never be this one. Read the other user comments, they are dead accurate. What I find fascinating is that a few people actually saw something of value in this tremendous turkey. It is so bad in every aspect it's indescribable. The acting, story, dialogue, and direction are awful beyond words. The Big Draw, which would have been dinosaur effects, are stilted, lame, and dated. The producers evidently have been too busy to have seen Jurassic Park or it's sequel to realize that they have been outgunned with dinosaur effects by an order of magnitude. I will be on my deathbed and still be annoyed that I paid $18 for two tickets to see this amateur level film.

A word about IMAX. While the initial films were certainly novel, everything I've seen in the last 6 years or so has been pretty much pointless. It's like the long standing predictions from the 1950's and 1960's of two-way visiphones. No one forsaw the advent of personal computers, with which the promise of two-way visuals is now actually quite cheap and obtainable, except that almost nobody cares. It turns out that we really don't need to see the other person talking. IMAX is like that. OK, I can see a huge screen and what would have been smaller is now...bigger. So what? The 3D aspect just makes the film much harder to watch. We humans are so good at interpreting a two-dimensional film as having depth, that adding 3D really just gets in the way.