Pterodactyl

The SciFi Channel loves movies about resurrected prehistoric beasts and other monsters. The methodology is always the same: not only are they bulletproof, but bullets hitting them do not even make them wince. The characters, even out in the wide open spaces, never see any more perspective than the audience. They can be surprised by the sudden appearance of a dangerous creature, even when they should have seen it coming a long way off. These animals also always have endless appetites and agendas of death and destruction. This would be an unlikely and unsafe lifestyle for any animal.

Here we had Pterodactyls, actually Pteranodons to be more precise. While all dinosaurs were somewhat fragile and susceptible to injury, flying reptiles were extremely fragile. They probably ate fish, rather than risk tangling with any size of land prey. Human beings would have been extra large prey. To them, we would resemble a two-legged predator, and they would likely avoid us, or at least treat us with great caution.

If one want's to see more realistic dinosaurs, series such as "Walking with Dinosaurs" are a much better bet. In "Chased by Sea Monsters," naturalist Nigel Marvin is show feeding a simulated Pteranodon. There was no movie mayhem here, just a realistic flying reptile.

Sci-Fi Channel. Home of the worst movies imaginable.

Sadly, these movies aren't bad in the "so bad they're good" way, despite what the fools who run the network might want you to believe. They are just BAD. As in "a pain to watch". "Without value". The only way to make movies like this remotely entertaining would be to make them utter comedies. Sadly, though, movies such as "Pterodactyl" are not comedic, just pathetic.

Were these characters and was the acting supposed to be funny somehow? They were utterly abominable! From the stereotypical diva actually looking at herself in the mirror for minutes at a time and saying "I love you" to her reflection to geeks who are like Urkel without the charisma. Was it supposed to be funny? Were we supposed to laugh? Maybe the first 1,000 times we saw such exaggerated stereotypes they might have been mildly amusing. Now they're just lame and tired. Can't laugh at them. Can't hate them. Can't like them. We can only hate watching them.

Send these flying dinos after the management of the Sci-Fi Channel. Now THAT would be funny and elicit great cheering from the fans of the Sci-Fi genre!

Don't get my wrong it's not all bad – there is a good few minutes when a scantily clad blonde runs through the jungle.

Here's the story line, I will try to give it to you straight, with an unbiased approach – a bunch of annoying US students and their dumbass lecturer are for some unknown reason in Romania when they decide it is a super idea to explore a volcano deep in some forest. Only when they arrive, they spend their time running away from CGI Pterodactyls, which have just hatched (probably out of an N64). But that's not all they do, they also produce incredibly annoying dialogue, for example after many of the students have been eaten by these winged Nintendo-graphics beasts, the lecturer sighs 'what am I going to tell their parents?' and in another scene, when the blonde hottie has had enough of all the fun and antics that always accompanies running away from Pterodactyls, she expresses 'I just wanna go hooommmee!' and talking about a missing nerd - 'you won't find him, a Pterodactyl took him, I told you 10 times, why don't you believe me??!!'. Hmmm, i wonder why, doesn't the word extinction mean anything to you?!!

Soon after getting into a spot of trouble with the old dino's, the idiot students and their lecturer bump into US 'Special Forces Team', more like 'Special Needs Team'. Unfortunately for them the Special Forces Team are just as lame as themselves, it doesn't appear that the producer spent a lot of time casting for this movie, as the team looks like a bunch of store clerks. Sure their people skills may have proved invaluable if the dinosaurs could actually converse in English, but unfortunately for them - that wasn't the case that day. The team may have been lead by Coolio, but this flick is no gangster's paradise. I'm sorry, I had to sneak that one in.

After a romance is born between a student (Kate) and the lecturer, there is a scene where the a Pterodactyl flies away with the student and the lecturer does what any caring, loving partner would do, he picks up the nearest gun and starts shooting rapidly in the general direction of the beast and the student, whilst shouting 'Kate! Kate!'. Hilarious stuff. After another student has been sliced up a little, the others go and see if she is OK (obviously not, being attacked by a dinosaur and all)but anyway, her eyes are still open and you can see her chest rise and fall with breathing, but they shout 'she's gone, leave her', a few minutes later they unsurprisingly hear her release a loud scream, then one of them brightly announces 'it must be Kate!' and another adds 'yea, I know I can hear her screaming!', Please! Are you serious? who writes these scripts?! – a 3 year old kindergarten kid with an over-active imagination?

The Special Forces Team spend their time shooting the Pterodactyls for hours on end, they may as well have been shooting water pistols or cap guns as the bullets had no effect, but as they are under-cover store clerks, who can blame them for their naivety & false optimism? Finally, if you have chosen to ignore all the reviews, and do decide to view this monster-rosity of a movie, pay close attention to the scene where they are making their way across a ravine simply by lassoing a sheep.....yes, i said a sheep, and using a rope to climb/shuffle across. Isn't it amazing how an adult can have all their body weight hanging from a rope, yet the rope is slack and their muscles non-flexed? I thought so.

At the end is where Coolio puts the cherry on the cake where he releases this humdinger of a line: 'It is time to dance baby, and I am your DJ', but instead of dancing, he breaks his promise and at the same time lives up to the song - guns don't kill Pterodactyl's, rappers do.

I gave this movie 2*'s to save the rating of 1* on the chance that there are worse movies out there. It's possible. The acting was horrible, but I've seen worse (usually when they decide they need *real* athletes to play roles). The special effects were bad, but I've seen worse (they're usually 50 years old though). The dialog was ridiculous (trying to remember when I've seen worse, but nothing comes to mind -- oh wait, maybe some of the dialog in the recent Star Wars movies). As giant-monster-terrorizing-helpless-people movies go - they're not known for deep character development - this one stood out as being exceptionally bad, as none of the characters behave at any time in any way that a normal human would reasonably be expected to behave under the circumstances. That's quite an accomplishment in itself. This movie might have been funny with a roomful of good friends and lots of tequila. Unfortunately, I had neither at the time.

The characters were terribly written, I never did get their names, they were just "generic nerd" or "stuck-up drama queen". They were all cardboard cut-outs.

The plot was completely unbelievable. Why did the us special forces bother trying to save the American students and then try to argue that no, they can't help them out of the forest? Why bother saving them if you're not committed to the idea? The Generic Professer was relying on these kids to help him save his career? He would have been better off looking for another position.

And the CGI was obvious. I don't have a problem with good CGI, but here it was impossible NOT to notice how fake everything was.