Carnossauro 2

"CARNOSAUR II" (1995, Morneau) is a surprisingly star-studded low-budget film inspired by "ALIENS" (1986, Cameron). Funnily enough James Cameron wanted to make "Jurassic Park" and he said it would have been "ALIENS but with dinosaurs", so perhaps "CARNOSAUR II" isn't far off what we might've gotten from Cameron (except the effects, sets, soundtrack, directing, props, story, etc. Would have been miles better...) had Spielberg not gotten his golden mits on the rights.

I don't know if this is better than "CARNOSAUR" (1993, Simon) because that would be like comparing apples and oranges. This second outing is definitely more mainstream and more watchable but with the same gore value. The raptors aren't as detailed as the deinonychus from the original but there are more of them and the Rex is just the same. Big, jerky and unforgivingly hungry.

You can say a lot of (negative) things about "Carnosaur 2", but not that it blatantly imitates the first film. "Carnosaur", from 1993, was a splatter horror flick about scientifically engineered dinosaurs running amok in a small town, whereas the sequel is a harshly violent 'send in the military cannon fodder for a mission that is guaranteed to fail' Sci-Fi movie. It's like Ridley Scott's "Alien" versus James Cameron's "Aliens", but on shoestring budgets, of course. Speaking of which, director Louis Morneau and writer Michael Palmer obviously were massive fans of "Aliens". The narrative structure, macho mercenary characters, kills, and a handful of iconic battle scenes are clearly and shamelessly modeled after the 1986 Sci-Fi landmark.

Is it original? Not exactly, no. Is it entertaining? You bet! Although less fun than the first "Carnosaur" (in my humble opinion, at least), the sequel also guarantees blood-soaked massacres and heavy artillery. My favorite moment: a tough-as-nails female mercenary sees her arm chewed off by a T-Rex, but she courageously continues to fight it until the critter also tears open her stomach.

Exciting non-related sequel about a crew sent in to repair an underground basement and to find out what happened to the original crew that is now missing. There they run into a group of super intelligent dinosaurs that are smarting then the crew themselves that then make the crew lunch. Better effects, some genuine surprises, plenty of scares, and a good atmosphere make this a fun outing, but it is sorely missing Diane Ladd's demented performance.

Rated R; Graphic Violence and Profanity.

Whereas the first was a Monster-on-the-loose in a small town kind of movie, this one is much more of a cramped low-lighted enclosed-space survival horror along the likes of the video game Dino Crises. To start off, I want to To start off, I want to make it clear that Aliens is one of my all-time favorite science fiction/horror movies, and this movie is Aliens. It's as if they took the exact same script but turned Ripley into a male, Newt into a male, set it at a facility in the desert instead of another planet, and replace the aliens with Raptors, and then you've got this movie. I am not kidding when I say it's the exact same movie as Aliens. Even some of the dialog is word for word the exact same. And you know what? I'm fine with that, because it ended up making for a damn entertaining movie. I always say that if you're going to rip something off, rip off something good.

I admit I went into this movie expecting cheese (having been previously warned a few years before) but I never expected what I saw could both be good and bad.

The story doesn't really go anywhere, and the characters are almost strait from Aliens. A team of people (nobody I've talked to seem to know who or what they are) are sent into a government research facility to get the place back on line, though the government apparently forgot to ask why it was off-line to begin with. People die, choppers crash, and all kinds of things happen, but if you try to spot the scenes reminicent of Aliens, then it actually becomes kinda fun (be sure to add in the "get away from her, you B****" line near the end).

As far as acting goes, not too bad. It just would have helped to have something of a plot or dialog. A must-see for B-moviers, just for the laughs.