Tyrannosaurus Azteca

This movie threw me at first in the way it's put together.

First I thought it is a Mexican movie, then I find out that it's Sy-Fy original. I thought it was filmed in Mexico, then I find that it's filmed in Oahu Hawaii (The same ranch where they filmed the "Wind Talker"). I thought the girl was Maxican, and I find that she's Tibetian-Australian. One thing I was right was that the guy looked Hawaiian, and he was.

The reason why I thought the movie was Mexican was that it was about the level of quality of average Mexican movie. It is kind of bad even for a Sy-Fy channel special. What I like about the film is that it's shot quite beautifully. And the actors are actually pretty good looking.

So despite the low budget feel, it only reinforces the fact that these actors are actually worth looking at. The girl looked like Pocahauntus for real.

Everyone says this movie is bad, but for a movie that's supposed to bad, it's sure getting lot of views. So somebody must be liking it.

I thought it was a great idea to combine T-Rex with the Aztecs and the conquistadors.

I was never bored while watching this movie, although it was shockingly low quality in production. I can't say that for many of the more higher quality production movies, so at least the script was acceptable in this movie.

Considering that Japanese anime studios routinely outputs a high quality program at about this budget range, I'm not sure if 2.5M for this movie is justified, but it was an interesting movie to watch in many different ways.

Sometimes you just want to watch a dubious SyFy movie about a tyrannosaur in an unlikely setting. And sometimes the very first appearance of the computer-generated lizard makes you regret your decision. It's not that I had high expectations at any point, but I thought there was potential in the concept. Instead - despite my commitment to watching - by the time only ten minutes had passed I had all but given up hope. 'Aztec Rex,' also known as 'Tyrannosaurus Azteca,' is dull, boring, cliched, and altogether questionable.

The costume design, makeup work, and set design are okay. The filming locations are gorgeous. Unfortunately, that's the closest I can come to offering praise, and otherwise the picture can be best described as specious and flimsy. With little variation, the conquistadors are unquestionably the villains of the story, as they are in real-life history, and this is cemented by imperialist musings and racism. The writing also reflects racist overtones in how the Aztecs are written, to say nothing of the direly weak excuse given for how the Spaniards and the indigenous people can understand each other. The dialogue, narrative, and scene writing are hackneyed and tedious, flagging and dragging from the very start as they contribute to meager pacing - and are almost entirely defined by tropes. This is true not least of all in regards to supporting character Ayacoatl, who as the only woman to appear on-screen with meaningful storytelling substance is obligated to embody every archetype of female characters, no matter how contrived.

Everyone in the cast does the best they can with the material they're given, but considering how appallingly thin and empty the writing is, their best can scarcely begin to make a difference. This particularly goes for Dichen Lachman as Ayacoatl - she tries to infuse her role with earnest nuance and personality, but more than anything else I feel sorry for her as she's stuck in this production, and her effort broadly comes across as overacting just as much as some of her costars (if in a different way). As wholly unbelievable as the CGI tyrannosaur appears, and the violence associated with it, the costume design that already barely passes muster sometimes weirdly bears the appearance of itself being created with green-screen effects. Speaking of effects, the most basic tangible blood or gore we see looks good, but the more grand it is, the less convincing it becomes. Meanwhile, Brian Trenchard-Smith's direction, and the fundamental orchestration and execution of most scenes, mostly feels pointedly stilted, halfhearted, and lacking.

It's very possible to enjoy movies like 'Aztec Rex.' Sometimes they're duly sincere with sufficient hard work put into them that, if imperfect, means they're very entertaining. At other times, whether intentionally over the top or accidentally flailing, such titles can be fun because they come across as (bad) B-movies. In this instance, however, the concatenation of every flaw and shortcoming is so overwhelming that the picture is robbed of almost all possible value. I won't say that it's entirely bereft - the climax is actually pretty well done - but the end result here is so desperate and trying as a viewing experience that it can surely be recommendable only for the profoundly curious or the immensely bored. 'Aztec Rex' certainly isn't the worst of all possible movies, and I wish I could say that I like it more than I do, but it's close enough that I'm forced to second-guess my choices in life.

It was 1 a.m. in the morning and I had nothing else to do. Don't judge me... please.

We're back in time during the Spanish settlements. A group have made their way onto an island. It doesn't take too long before they encounter a large "reptile", which gobbles up their horse. Soon they're captured by the natives and in order to gain freedom they must kill the "reptile gods." THE CG sucks; it reminds me of the CG of early console video games. The encounters were lame. The only positive thing I have to say about this was the hottie native running around in a skimpy outfit. Otherwise it's just a middling effort.

I was intrigued by the concept and did think that Tyranosaurus Azteca had a lot of good ideas going for it. The camera work and scenery are quite nice, the acting from Dichen Lachman is decent and there are some acceptable enough gore effects. So what spoilt Tyranosaurus Azteca? The dinosaur effects for one, I've seen worse with Warbirds and the (insert name) vs (insert name) movies, but on the whole they do look cheap and sometimes off-scale. In terms of how they are used, they are nowhere near tough enough, little is done to make them at least interesting with little attempt to explain their origins, and they die all too easily. Despite the gore, the death scenes are lame, with no real suspense or sense of terror, not to mention hilariously-over-the-top in some. The story is rather unsurprising with too much of a silly tone and never really that exciting(though I can definitely think of much duller SyFy movies), the characters are on the clichéd side of things with little done to make us identify with them, the Shamon character ends up annoying rather than antagonistic and the rest of the acting with Lichman aside is either bland(Marco Sanchez or too broad(Ian Zierling). All in all, not terrible but I didn't find much to be enthused about. 4/10 Bethany Cox

To be fair they did as well as they could with a budget of five shillings and sixpence, but the dialogue was more cheesy than 9lbs of emmental and the CGI was a little old hat now. maybe if some of the actors were not so perfectly chiselled out of granite it would have made the film a little better too.. To say this was awful is to do this film a mis-service, if you want to see something that is totally execrable, you gotta sit and waste a couple of hours of your life watching 'sickle', that is soo mind numbingly awful, its actually good,(several large alcoholic beverages are deriguer though. Any road up, I enjoyed this film and its gotta be worth a look if you have not seen it yet, just don't expect anything along the lines of 'jurassic park,the lost world' or 'apocalypto'.