T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous

From the bulk of reviews on this site I gather most people don't realize that IMAX is about presentation and style rather than story and content. Shot on vertical 70mm film the reels in the projection booth take up a huge amount of space, thus the running time of IMAX movies tends to be kept to around 45-50 minutes. Thus the format lends itself more towards the documentary/short movie genre. Most of the movies are factual but sometimes original stories come along. T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous is one of them.

It came out in 1998 and when I was at the Trocadero IMAX-3D cinema in London I had to choose between this movie and another called Across the Sea of Time. I chose the latter. Which is a shame coz the dinosaurs and huge shots of this movie would have looked better in 3D.

T-Rex begins with an impressive opening shot of the camera swooping over the Arizona desert, which still looks great even on a widescreen TV instead of the huge IMAX screen. There's a hefty narration from the lead actress conveying relevant information about dinosaurs. In this respect the film feels a bit like a 10-year-old's educational program. But being familiar with IMAX movies I was expecting this. I think too many people were expecting a Jurassic Park variant.

Tho I would have expected a few more dinosaurs. In the 45 minute running time there wasn't much dinosaur action. Though there was a good amount of story that I did get into. Plus the movie has a great score by William Ross. He released a promo CD of this score but it's impossible to find.

Hey, I was entertained and I thot the brief story was quite okay. The horribly slanderous reviews on this site really baffle me. The IMAX format does not work well on DVD, you have to see these movies in the cinema. But if you have a good sound system then the DVD is still worth it.

The DVD is in 1.33:1 full frame (they are shown theatrically at 1.44:1 so there isn't much modification to the framing) with a Dolby 5.1 soundtrack that is quite impressive. A slight featurette and an IMAX movies trailer are also included.

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.

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.

Maybe it's because I'm not 11 years old anymore, but I watched this movie with my 9 year old nephew, and neither one of us bothered to push the still button, when we went to the bathroom. Is this the way American kids are lured into learning science? A teenager stumbling through ridicoluos scenes with dinosaurs, only to get rescued by her father, who seemingly abandoned her?