Pterodactyl

3.5/10. Just what you would expect it to be, a bad sci-fi horror film, cheaply produced. For some inane reason, I get a kick out of these kind of films. That doesn't mean i think they are good, I just relish in the badness of them. Some of the special effects are decent, but I am not a big fan of these computer generated special effects. This acting is poor overall,but a couple of the actors do fine. Not much here to recommend. It can be quite gory and gruesome at times, and the special effects in this area are very poor. Mark L. lester's direction is minimal to say the least. The score is very obvious and even distracting at times. Cheesy sets. Yuk.

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.

A great cast is what saves this CGI cheap. Cameron Daddo does the best he can with what he has to work with. Amy Sloan is always interesting to watch. Come on Sci-Fi, give us some deeper plots. Don't underestimate our intelligence..The Sci-Fi channel is pumping out these 2 million dollar movies, and they still can't find the balance between scientific and campy. I have to assume the execs at Sci-Fi think the visuals trump the story, which is too bad. Who watches Star Trek for the effects? I don't even mind bad special effects, I just wish these Original Sci-Fi flicks had more depth and less clichés. A bigger budget is not required, only inspiration.

The movie is developed on the Armenian-Turkish frontier where a students group(Amy Sloan, and a gorgeous Mircea Monroe, among them) and their professor(Cameron Daddo)undergo an archaeological expedition. In a dormant volcano closes an incredible secret, a nest of pterodactyls eggs, accurately preserved, are ready to hatch . Meanwhile a contra-terrorist team led by a tough commander(Coolio) tracks down Armenian dangerous terrorist. Then Pterodactyls spontaneously attack and the humans try desperately to escape and grisly death happen, while the soldiers use their technological weapons.

The movie delivers the goods with hair-rising chills and noisy scares when the Pterodactyls appear savagely stalking its prey and attacking. This is an OK amusing juvenile with thin characters and contrived plot but quite entertaining . It's remarkable for FX recreation the ferocious and carnivorous beast developing a bloodthirsty hunger for human eating. The actors give vigorous physical performances dodging the prehistoric giant birds recreated by the prolific computer generator, as usual. The Pterodactyls, themselves, of course, are the real stars, and they're marvellous terrifying astounding, and quite convincing. The motion picture is professionally produced and directed by Mark L Lester. He's a cool director and producer-American World Pictures- of B movies , his greatest success was during the 80s, when he directed hits , such as ¨Commando, Firestarter, Showdown in Little Tokio and Class of 1984¨ . No for small children for realistic, gory and violent attack scenes. Rating : Average but entertaining.

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.