The Dinosaur Project

This movie really had me smiling at the end of it. And thats a good thing, really i could take this over the more recent king Kong any day of the week, this film does not even try to compete with a heavyweight masterpiece like jurasic park and as a result stands up on its own merits.

Forget about the biased cheap scores the review sites have given this film, forget that this film has a cast of relatively unknown cast members, forget that this film isn't scientifically realistic, Just go and watch with an open mind.

Its just so ambitious yet also so modest, one of the few pleasant surprises this year.

A British expedition formed by the lead researcher Jonathan Marchant (Richard Dillane), his assistant, a doctor and a TV crew, travels to Congo to seek evidence of a dinosaur. A local guide and the helicopter pilot join the team and the group heads to the jungle. During their trip, they find a stowaway in the helicopter, the son of Jonathan. Soon the helicopter is attacked by flying creatures and crashes in the jungle in the beginning of the last journey of Jonathan Marchant and his team.

"The Dinosaur Project" is a predictable and lame dinosaur movie, a combination of the clichés of "The Lost World" with the exhausted style of the "reality" of "The Blair Witch Project". It is amazing that the viewer can predict what is going to happen on the next scene, and most of the dialogs are ridiculous. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Projeto Dinossauro" ("Dinosaur Project")

"The Dinosaur Project" is a strange blend of found footage and science fiction that takes Jules Verne into the realm of nightmare. It is a more intense film than I was expecting with an slight atmosphere of hopelessness polluting the air of adventure. The film is directed by Sid Bennett and follows a group of scientist on a quest to search for the mysterious prehistoric creatures said to be terrorizing the locals deep in the jungle of central Africa. It is a tragic story that plays out through video recordings of the journey that is orchestrated by the lead scientist's stowaway son who has his mind set to record the journey to discovery. This movie manages to be refreshing, dark and thrilling. It stars Natasha Loring, Richard Dillane, Matt Kane and Peter Brooke.

The film keeps a constant feeling of watching tragedy unfold scene by scene as camera roulettes between camcorder and digital clips thanks to the various small wireless camera's the young boy brings with him. This film doesn't give you a moment to be bored with the usual camera tricks that are common with found footage film due to the intense action and total fatality of the characters story lines. The movie feels like a complete misadventure that is believable. I almost forgot the this was a fictional account due to the back and forth between choppy footage and hand held camcorder style the movie uses. The dinosaurs in this film are vicious, unnatural predators that bring the nightmare home and yet there are small moments when the story shows a playful excitement of new discovery of a species thought to be extinct for millions of years. This isn't a fun carefree film like Jurassic Park but it isn't suppose to be that kind of film. "The Dinosaur Project" is a pleasant surprise as far as being intense and chilling. This movie was an intense little story that was entertaining and pretty dark. A very cool dinosaur picture.

This movie should get approximately 6 rating above I thought but it just get 4.3 (27/9/12)?? Its not that bad, its a dinosaur movie actually and that dinosaur looks real for me.

Maybe everyone will compare with blair witch project or anything but this movie have its own status,it try to be like a snuff movie but nobody will believe them. Whats so funny about this movie is they got no idea how to shoot a shaky-cam movie so they just stick the camera on their body and its totally fun because every character have it.

Its storyline maybe sounds cliché but interesting. I tell you the story, its about an expedition team gotta go to Congo to find the, what they call... African Loch Ness! During their trip, some dinosaur-like creatures attack their heli and they crash. Then, more will come. Worth watching!

Don't let the strangely low rating on IMDb fool you folks. This movie is an entertaining mixture of a dinosaur movie and a "found footage" film. If you liked Jurassic Park and Paranormal Activity then I think you'll enjoy this movie, it's got elements of both intertwined within.

However, don't make the mistake of believing that it's trying to copy either of those movies, it stands out on it's own and is quite unique in many respects. It's highly advisable to not watch The Dinosaur Project with the expectation of seeing Jurassic Park 4, you'll almost certainly be disappointed. Instead, view it as a different twist on the whole dinosaur theme.

It's got moments of humor, moments of horror and 5 different species of satisfying CGI dinosaurs (a few more species would have been nice). There are quite a few great dinosaur shots, including one scene where a dinosaur is filmed from first person perspective while swimming with it's siblings, which I thought was very well done. There are scenes with flying dinosaurs, swimming dinosaurs and land-based dinosaurs, so there's quite a mix of dinosaur material incorporated.

The acting is about average for today's standards, there's a mix of good moments and not so good moments, it's really nowhere near as bad as one of the other reviewers has mentioned, all the actors did an adequate job. I've seen a lot of big budget Hollywood movies with acting that was far, far inferior to this. None of the actors deserve awards for their performances but they all (story-permitting) deserve to be rehired for the sequel.

And one thing to mention is the camera work, I thought it was filmed exceptionally well with some very inventive usage of the first-person perspective, nicely mixed with third-person shots. I was actually hugely impressed at how well it was filmed for the constraints that a "found footage" film puts on the director. From a technical point of view, it's probably one of the best examples of the genre in my opinion. I'm not really a fan of "found footage" film as such, but this movie is a brilliant example of how to use it effectively. And there are a number of people with cameras in the movie, so we get to see different camera angles too.

By no means is it perfect though, there are moments in the movie which are implausible and the scripting could have been improved in places. But I could say the same for a lot of movies I've seen, and many of them are, again, big budget Hollywood blockbusters. This movie isn't trying to teach you about dinosaurs, it's not scientifically precise, it's not trying to emulate the epic nature of the Jurassic Park franchise. All it's trying to do is entertain you, in a sort of pop-corn flick fashion. At the same time however, it's unique, absorbing and well-directed.

With a somewhat open-ending, I'd definitely be interested in watching part 2 if it ever gets produced. Remember, it's not Jurassic Park, it's a different spin on the dinosaur theme but with understandably similar consequences of human and dinosaur coexistence.

If you're a fan of anything dinosaur-related then this is a movie you don't want to miss. Just go into it with low expectations (like I did after seeing the low IMDb score) and you'll probably be pleasantly surprised. I give this one a 6.5.