T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous

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've never been to an Imax show or a 3-D film, go along for the experience. However, what it has in effects, it lacks in dialogue, storyline etc. Forty six minutes was enough.

This being really the first full narrative IMAX film, I applaud the film-makers. The 3D aspect is taken advantage of. But unless it's viewed in 3D (which only certain theaters provide) a majority of the enjoyment will be lost.

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!!

...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.