User reviews

No, really. I knew it was going to be bad. Really bad. I mean, a low budget movie about dinosaurs roaming around in LA is going to be bad. You know it's going to rip off ideas and scenes from Jurassic Park. Of course it is... because that's THE benchmark for dinosaur movies. And it's going to be a clone of all the disaster/horror/animals at large movies ever made. If you're like me, you're completely aware of this going in. In fact, you crave a good Cheese-fest B-movie. But no matter how low your expectations are, this movie was still worse.

Considering how far the CG industry has come since Jurassic Park, which was 20 years ago now, I have what I consider a reasonable expectation of monster SFX to be. This wasn't that good. I mean, they actually failed to match 20 year old tech, or apparently develop any kind of realistic motion models. The flying dinos look like claymation. The matting is horrid, with poorly rendered CG dinos clearly not even remotely matching the background.

Nah, there's no redemption. And yet, many will watch this on Netflix because it's there. So if you're checking this review prior to watching, take your lowest expectations and drop them one or two levels.

It's absolutely insane that there can be this many people in the industry who have access to the means of making a movie, but still have no idea how to make a movie. Bad script, bad acting, bad CG, bad music, bad sound FX, bad audio mixing, bad foley, bad continuity, bad makeup, bad costumes, bad lighting, almost every aspect is bad, which is why you'll want to watch it for the cheese factor.

This was bad on a Jurassic scale. Given it is a movie from The Asylum, then at least we as the audience have an ounce of hope that this might just be one of those movies that stand out from the rest of the movies that they spew out. But no. I must say that given the cover/poster for the movie, I had my hopes up just a little bit, but when I saw THE ASYLUM on the screen as the movie started, all hopes evaporated like dew before the rising sun.

The idea was pretty much everything that was used in the "Jurassic Park" movies; dinosaurs have been brought back to life by the hands of humans with the help of technology and research. And of course, these dinosaurs break free of their captivity and wreck havoc on a major city - in this case Los Angeles.

Right, almost textbook page by page copy from "Jurassic Park", well, and then exposed to The Asylum. What could possibly go wrong?

I will say that the dinosaurs as CGI animated creatures were actually quite alright. However, when they brought in the prosthetics and puppets it just went from alright to oh-so-wrong. These non-CGI animated dinosaurs were such an eyesore that it was downright embarrassing to watch. Especially the scene with the pteranodon in the helicopter. Look at the beak when it is CGI animated and then look at the difference in texture and color even when it is a real prosthetic used. It was just so bad.

Story-wise, then "Age of Dinosaurs" was nowhere near as interesting as "Jurassic Park", and chances are that if you have seen any of the "Jurassic Park" movies and enjoyed them, then you don't really want to spend 88 minutes on this movie. The story was as plain, predictable and textbook material as they come.

And what about the title itself, "Age of Dinosaurs"? Wouldn't that actually indicate a period of time spanding more than a single day? Well, I guess the title was just about as good as the actual movie was.

Regarding the acting in the movie, well, nothing overly interesting here. You have TV pseudo-legend Treat Williams, but he is barely making it watchable. And then there was Ronny Cox, which was actually nice to see, though this is not one of his best movies, not by a long shot.

Using breakthrough flesh-regeneration technology, a biotech firm creates a set of living dinosaurs. But when the creatures escape their museum exhibit and terrorize Los Angeles, a former firefighter must rescue his teenage daughter from the chaos brought on by the Age of Dinosaurs.

We have the benefit of a film starring Treat Williams ("Dead Heat") and Ronny Cox ("RoboCop"), but that is about the best thing you can say for this film. It is exactly what you expect, with such an obvious rip-off of "Jurassic Park" that I am surprised they even bothered to make it.

If you like the cheese that comes out of the Asylum, feel free to check out this piece of work. If not, avoid it. There is no way I am going to try to convince anyone to see this turkey.

A dinosaur rampage ! Not the most original idea for a movie but one that sounds like total and enjoyable nonsense , There might be a slight reservation to this and that is AGE OF DINOSAURS is being broadcast on the SyFy nearly every film you see on it is overly reliant on CGI and dumb scripting . That said the film does contain a couple of relatively well known cast members in the shape of Treat Williams and Ronny Cox and even if they're not Hollywood A listers at least it gives some hope for the movie

As Morgan Freeman said to Tim Robbins " Hope is a dangerous thing " and watching this film you know what he's getting at . Any hope that this would be an atypical SyFy channel movie are soon dashed . The dinosaurs are of course poor CGI realisation and one wonders how much fun it would have been working on this production ? " More fun than actually watching it " you cry and you'd probably be right . Once the dinosaurs make a breakout there's no internal logic on a narrative or mis-en-scene level . For example after the mad scientists and the greedy corporate capitalists have brought the reptiles back to life , they all make a beeline for the nearest cupboard because hiding in a cupboard is the only way to escape from a dinosaur . The production team realising that the audience tuned in to see on screen dino carnage try and get around this by introducing spectacle but you end up thinking maybe hiding in a cupboard best suited the story . As the terrible lizards charge down a busy LA street it's obvious this has been achieved by randomly filming an everyday street scene and generating CGI dinosaurs on to the footage . Words fail to convey how unconvincing all of this is as a cyclist peddles down the street not noticing there's a giant T-Rex a few feet away from him . The dinosaurs for some reason then attack a shopping and the first time the shoppers realise there's a lizard attack is when they're on the dino-menu . Considering the time frame involved and that there's a news copter flying around you'd think the shoppers would have been forewarned by someone calling them on their cell phones telling them what's happening . This type of clumsy ignorance is typical of the film but it does contain at least one sensible thinking when the media warn everyone to remain indoors and not to venture out in to the streets which of course negates the production team having to film scenes with lots of extras

Horrible, horrible, horrible. Do NOT rent.

Don't be fooled by the juvenile cover thinking this is a kids movie. We were in a hurry and thought it would be a good choice. Wished we'd checked these reviews first. Lol!

The acting and special effects are atrocious even for a low budget film.

Don't waste your money.

As I watched the first few minutes of the film, I wondered how Treat Williams felt about doing this film. He was the best part - if there has to be a best part.

I'm not sure what else to say to convince you not to rent it, but I have to fill up 10 lines of text.

This Asylum flick has all the clichés of a good old fashioned low budget TV movie: cowardly scientists that play god, greedy corner cutting businessman bully, innocent and completely stupid teenager girl, action figure concerned father, brave American cops, Ronny Cox (a cliché all of his own), rapacious dinosaurs and really dumb special effects.

Now, I didn't really expect anything else, but frankly I felt offended by the messages in this film. You should never be arrogant, innovative or bold. Stay in your place like so many female characters in the film. If you are a teenager you are dumb. Not just dumb, retarded (in the scientific sense, not the jargon one). If you are a woman, you are helpless. No measure of protection will help you from what you fear will happen. Glass will always break, even if it is cutting edge rocket one. You can do anything to protect your children, including killing priceless dinosaurs and trying to run away from them by going inside the city, so they can kill other people as well; corollary: being a concerned parent trumps any other motivation. Always use extreme violence when threatened: bring the cops and military if possible and shoot bullets into animals rather than call animal control specialists with tranquillizers. Oh, and if you try to revive the dinosaurs, do it en masse, all species, as big as possible, before you announce it to the world in a small building with no TV coverage and let them escape.

Bottom line: this film wasn't just bad, it was offensive and completely stupid. Treat Williams and Ronny Cox rarely play in masterpieces of cinema, but this was just too much. Not even bad enough to be funny.

I expected not too much, after all it is a low budget movie in a genre defined by multi million dollar projects like Jurassic Park. But there are just tons of problems with this movie. The script is bad, the acting ranges from okay to bad, the effects are bad, the sound is bad. The script has a not very original story, no plot twists, but lots of logical errors. The effects are simply bad. As soon as any dinosaur moves more than just a little, the animations look like from a 90s computer game (close ups and slow movements actually look decent). The CG do not match the footage, it just looks like copied from another movie and dropped into this. The (way too many) explosions are better, but still no match for many 15-20 year old movies. The characters.... no development at all. I kinda liked the Chief, and Jade is cute, but wanted to just look away for all those embarrassing lines. Sound effects and music were okay, but in many dialogues you hear lots of clothes rustling on the lavalier microphones. And so many WTF moments. Why would a Stegosaur be standing on top of a skyscraper? Why would every helicopter pilot try to get within biting range?

Two stars for trying to make a movie, and failing I absolutely recommend that you do NOT watch this one.

How on earth they got Treat Williams and Ronny Cox to do this movie is an amazing feat. This movie is of course essentially a rip off of Jurassic Park: The Lost World - well... the final two reels anyhow. Unfortunately, the script is so horrible. (If you were a fireman, standing holding an ax, and a dinosaur was in the process of tearing into somebody 4 feet away from you, wouldn't you at least take a swing, instead of standing there for five seconds with a bored look on your face?)

The visual FX are OK for this movie. They are about one generation from being 'done' as the dinosaurs didn't seem to blend in with the lighting from scene to scene, but not entirely distracting. The "script" is just so bad, that is really what takes you out of the movie. Although, I wonder if there was any writing forethought at all, and if this really wasn't just an exercise in improv, then having the effects done to suit the filmed improv. Visually, this movie was a touch better than a similar movie called Carnosaur (1993), though this is twenty years later in the technology for the FX.

The reason for the two stars is simply because the visual FX were at times OK. And I did appreciate the fact that when the dinosaurs tear into people, they didn't feel the need to show the actual teeth tearing the flesh. There were cutaways where you only saw the blood splatter - reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's style.

The Mythbusters once proved that "you can polish a turd", however in this case, the script is a turd that probably couldn't be polished with out a few more rewrites - or a burning the first draft, and restarting all together.

When a biogenetics company announces they have recreated dinosaurs and brought them back to life, their escape into Los Angeles forces a firefighter to race to save both his daughter and the city from the rampaging beasts.

This here turned out to be quite a fun if typical Sci-Fi Channel creature feature which means that a lot of the issues present are quite familiar to those with experience in this field. As expected, the CGI is pretty terrible with the usual inconsistencies present where creatures appear to shrink and grow in scale depending on the sequence provided and really don't have too many scenes where it's all consistent with everything else around them. As well, the fact that the misappropriation of size between the different creatures is another factor to deal with, as the film doesn't make any sort of historical accuracies to the different species, mangling the statistics among the different creatures and getting them wrong all-to-frequently. On top of that is the traditional stand-by of looking way too fake and generated outside the set, with their pixelated appearance and design looking none-to-real and being way too obvious about the computerized necessity for their input into the story. That aside, this one wasn't too bad, as there's a lot of fast and quite vicious dinosaur attack scenes that run the range from one-on-one confrontations to being overwhelmed by the size or numbers of the other species and even including a full-scale assault with a military helicopter firing away at the creatures which is quite exciting. The fact that the majority of those scenes are done with realistic-looking puppets or props makes it all the more interesting since they look like they're interacting with the cast for once and it manages to look rather nicely on it's own being so close to the true being. This factor alone saves the film tremendously, and in conduction with the fine action on display makes it really worthwhile.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.

This Asylum is not too bad. I'm starting to enjoy their movies more as I appreciate them for what they are.

Yes, they could spend a few more bucks, but I'm also sick of $200 Million movies that are bloated beyond belief.

People complain about the Asylum movies, but that's their loss.

It was fun to watch a dinosaurs running through L.A.

Special effect cheap, but they leave a lot to the imagination, just like movies of yore!

Ron Cox and Treat Williams do a fine job in this movie. They make it believable.

Actually, I liked this as much or better than Jurassic Park 2 and 3. Much more variety in scenes and things that take place.

It is suspenseful, because you don't see all of the gore flashed in your face and the lead ups to the dinosaurs can be a little scary.

Terrible CGI, terrible acting, terrible plot! The film is so repetitive- find my daughter, found her, oh damn, lost her again! Time to find her again! Rinse and repeat.

A defense for the awful CGI may be 'They had a low budget' in that case, they should have never made the movie! Simple as that! I wouldn't mind if this movie didn't exist because they had no budget.

We could have had a good movie with bad CGI, but the crew weren't trying! No movie screams 'We don't give a crap' more than this one! It just reeks of disinterest more than any film I've ever seen!

Also, as far as I'm concerned, being a firefighter doesn't mean being in the military! So I don't understand why our main character is such an expert with guns and fighting simply through putting out fires!

Generally I have an immense dislike for The Asylum's movies, but some are watchable so I do keep watching as there is something about their awfulness that is kind of compelling. There is much worse from The Asylum than Age of Dinosaurs and it is certainly better than SyFy's Jurassic Attack aka Rise of the Dinosaurs, but that isn't saying much to praise it. The best asset is the acting, not great but not that bad for The Asylum. Treat Williams and Ronny Cox look very at ease in their roles and are solid. There are a few non-entities in some of the bitty roles but overall the acting could have been worse. The music score also wasn't so bad, it does move things forward a little, doesn't distract and I can still remember parts, again it's improved from past efforts. I cannot say the same for the rest of Age of Dinosaurs(what an inane title) though. It is a very cheap movie visually, the editing is as choppy as you'd expect from The Asylum with scenes not fitting seamlessly together, you'll also have a field day spotting continuity errors. Even worse are the special effects for the dinosaurs, they move so awkwardly and they are designed in a way that makes them look like a failed high school project from 25-30 years ago. The dialogue has layers of cheese and sounds like the actors were having difficulty uttering it with any natural feeling. A lot of the lines are clichéd and any banter has a tendency to go overboard. The story reads of a dumbed down parody of both Jurassic Park and King Kong, but with none of the charm or thrills. Instead it is utter stupidity and predictable storytelling, with cartoon-ish, unimaginative attacks and tedious pacing. It is also very thin from a structural point of view, there isn't enough to sustain the length and make it up there is a lot of pointless filler that only succeeds in bogging the movie down. The characters are as clichéd as the writing, they are also very annoying and as well as having no development are made to do things that a lot of people would deem embarrassing. The dinosaurs also have no personality whatsoever and judging from people's reactions to them they don't seem to come across as much of a threat. On the whole, I've seen worse but if you are looking for a good or entertaining dino movie you are best leaving Age of Dinosaurs uncovered. 3/10 Bethany Cox

This movie has to be in my top 10 worst movies of all times. The people who spent money on producing it needs to be arrested. If you are going to make a GOD AWFUL movie and you have to know its this bad while making it then just give the money to charity please. Stop wasting money. I'm American and this embarrasses me to know that we blow money on crap like this.

If you are going to make movies like this at least make sure there are hot chicks showing some boobies! Thats the only way I'd put another star on this review! But I guess I shouldn't get too mad. I was stupid enough to watch the movie and waste my own time. At least I didn't pay anything for it.

The movie is a poorly written script, lazily constructed dinosaurs, the worst CGI ever, underdeveloped characters, lack of production values. Even the very first big screen dinosaur movie Jurassic park released around 1992 (25 years ago), had much better graphics, the story and character write-up. More to it, it looks so obvious in the closeup shot that the character is talking to a rubber. You can make out the obvious difference in colour and graphic rending between two shots - closeup and far. Bottom line, it is more of senseless dinosaur behaviour and total disregard to physics results and results in a movie that is terrible to watch.

To start off with any movie that has Treat Williams is going to be great or bad. He is in that elite class of actors that know how to make a bad movie into a Great Bad movie. Dean Cain and Casper Van Dien are also in the top 10. Age of Dinosars lacked nothing for being a great bad movie. Good CG, people you cared about. I'll never understand the people that review this type of movie based their expectations of it as one would do with Aliens or Jurassic Park. Great Bad movies are just that. Pure entertainment with enough slow spots to take a quick break. As for me and my humble option plus owning over 2000 bad movies this is one that I'll add to my collection. If you want to watch something that is going to enlighten, inform and scare you. Go find another movie to watch. But if you want something that the whole family can make fun of and have a good time it is the movie.

OK dude..i am a dino freak..huge fan..and only ever dream to work side by side my my idol mr spielberg.

good effort in making the film. good job on cgi effects , sounds,

but is this a tribute or are you mocking Spielbergs masterpiece Jurassic Park..

so many elements r a replica!!...the old man... the girl in the locked safe..lol..come on man...

but like i said well done on making the film, ateast you made a dino film .

but i think you can do better. you have the ideas, the resources etc...go for it and make a real tribute to the jurassic franchise.

Okay so as everyone already pointed out, this film WILL be worse that whatever you expect. Poor CGI, bad acting, unrealistic reactions, basically no plot...

But, as everything has its pros and cons, this film actually has a bright side, it's ridiculously hilarious. I was laughing the whole time, the actors' reactions is just funny!

I would've called this film "Funny Dinosaurs" (Comedy, Sci-Fi) :D?

I'm always against convincing anyone not to watch a film because it's bad and I believe that everyone should decide for themselves whether it's bad or not after watching it but this one here is an exception.

Save 88 minutes of your life!