Theodore Rex

From the What Was She Thinking? file: Whoopi Goldberg plays a cop in the future who is teamed with a talking dinosaur (!) for a crime case involving a madman who wants to start another ice-age. Straight-to-tape oddity is embarrassing and ridiculous, a high-concept in search of itself. Apparently this was a labor of love for its writer-director, Jonathan Betuel (who also served as one of the producers); sadly, the end results are anemic, to be charitable. Goldberg's mere presence on-screen can often spark good will and laughter no matter how poor the script, but here she's drowning and you can see the unfunny results. NO STARS from ****

No matter what anyone tells you, there is a mere fact to the word "possession" in film circles -- such as "what possessed you to greenlight this film?" Religion doesn't have anything to do with it, but common sense does. That is, if your head is clear and you are of sound mind to make a judgment.

On many levels I tried to rationalize where this film would entertain....or even interest the average consumer. The star? The story? The unique idea? A buddy movie that kids would love with a dinosaur and a black woman? On, my goodness! I am sure when this was an "idea", it sounded good. But somewhere during the course of development...someone should have pointed out where the idea could not translate into a piece of entertainment anyone would wish to watch or pay for...unless they were very much deeply under the influence of alcohol or drugs and saw something the rest of us could not see.

Regardless, this is a complete mess. Mess, mess - sin and a mess.

Who cares about the plot (what plot?) et al. Whoopie got a paycheck, but I would have been embarrassed to take it. I sure hope she fired her agent/manager/publicist over this career move. Obviously not, she went on to make more bad films. And more bad films. Sad.

Movies about dinosaurs can be entertaining. So can Whoopi Goldberg movies. But Whoopi AND dinosaurs?

After the first 20 minutes of "Theodore Rex", I had come to one conclusion: this movie is evil. Evil, vile, wicked and reprehensible in its spite for the audience. Nothing this bad is made by accident; this is the visual equivalent of a torture chamber.

First of all, Whoopi does not make good action movies (watch "Fatal Beauty" if you think I'm lying), but the film makers don't care - she's a tough cop here, yet again.

Seen a million cop buddy flicks this week? Well, here's number one million and one, pal.

Don't like cute, humanistic animated dinosaurs since that Spielberg TV show about them? Too bad, here's another one and he's a cop, too!

You one of those people that hates car chases, shoot-outs, sloppy dialogue, boring futuristic FX and seeing talented people (Goldberg, Mueller-Stahl, Roundtree) stuck in a movie that looks like a tax write-off? A BIG tax write-off?

And you read this review all the way to the end. You DESERVE a sequel. Seriously.

No stars, not a one. And if they really make a sequel to "Theodore Rex", Hollywood deserves to be attacked a whole herd of wise-cracking foam rubber dinosaurs.

Now, I'd pay to see that.

Currently, "Theodore Rex" is listed on IMDb's infamous Bottom 100 list. While I would agree it was a bad and very misguided project, I cannot understand why there is this much hatred for the film. Sure, it's bad...but I've seen a lot worse!! At least it has interesting sets and dinosaur costumes...though little else. I'd consider putting it on the Bottom 1000 list (if they ever come up with one). As for the costumes, the look like they were literally recycled from the "Dinosaurs" TV series...though unlike the show, the film has little in the way of cleverness, comedy or fun.

The film is set in some sort of weirdo alternate reality but the prologue trying to explain this was completely confusing and unnecessary. Suffice to say, in this sci-fi film, human-like dinosaurs act just like people...and coexist in a human world. Or, at least they try to coexist but the humans look down on their cold- blooded friends. Because of this, when a cop (Whoopi Goldberg) is assigned to work with the very first dinosaur police detective, she is less than thrilled. And, by this point, her feeling is pretty much the audience's.

The bottom line is that the story is dull and often stupid. But the film isn't the most boring film I've ever seen--not that this is a glowing endorsement. I think that instead of making this super- expensive direct-to-video release, the filmmakers would have been much better off just making a "Dinosaurs" movie...it couldn't help but be better and less annoying.

Ever since I started visiting this site, and voting for movies, I have never given any movie a rating of 1. Even the disturbing "Dance! Workout with Barbie" got a 2. There is a reason for this.

Any time I find myself watching what I think is a really bad movie, I have to stop and ask myself the following question: "Is this movie really as bad as the horrific soul-sucking beast that is 'Theodore Rex'?" And I've never been able to answer "yes".

I would give anything within reason to know what crackhead said "Hey! Let's remake 'Blade Runner' with Barney in the Harrison Ford Role!" and decided it was a good idea to actually spend the time and money to commit it to film. Furthermore, I want to know what the hell kind of market they were going to sell this towards if it hadn't gone strait to video. This is that rare monster: a movie that is way too violent for kids and way too insanely stupid for adults. I'd ask "what were they THINKING?" but in this case, it might actually be redundant.

Anyhow, all you need to know is that you should only expose yourself to this monstrosity if you're one of the five or six rabid fans of "Howard the Duck", or if you are curious to see the most Evil Insane movie of all time, or you want to REALLY punish yourself.