Dino Crisis.
Raptor Island (2004): 1 out of 10: The Syfy channel has produced some stinkers (Boa vs. Python, Boa vs. Cobra, and Feather Boa vs. Mink) but Raptor Island easily eclipses all of them.
Where can one begin? The special effects have to be seen to be believed. The entire film is in CGI (except for Lorenzo Lamas, who is decidedly not animated) and it couldn’t be more poorly done. Remember those old prehistoric planet movies from the sixties where they would superimpose some iguana stock footage attacking some middle-aged vaudeville guys dressed as caveman? Raptor Island lowers that bar considerably.
The raptors seem to have been ported from an old Saturn CD-ROM game. They have five distinct frames of animation each and blink in and out of the picture. Gunshots are represented by graphics that would make House of the Dead weep. The raptors, when shot, simply ignore the bullets, then fall down.
The raptors are perhaps the stupidest creatures ever shown on film, ignoring actors and each other as they gaze off into the distance with bloody mouths that look like a five-year-old got into mommy’s make-up box.
Add equally badly CGI rendered sand, ships and planes and one really wishes the MST3K crew would come back for an encore anniversary show.
With badly rendered monsters and a throwaway script, one could at least hope for something gratuitous to liven things up. (You know, a decapitation scene or skinny dipping scene or a combination of the two.) Raptor Island provides nothing of the sort. This is family friendly entertainment. But only if you really, really hate your family.
I would not be so bold as to say the filmmakers involved with Raptor Island are talentless. I am sure they might be excellent singers able to juggle, perhaps. I would state though they should probably avoid the visual arts moving forward.
This is an airplane in a movie in 2004. Not a model kit put together by a talentless child in a bit of a hurry.
I would laugh about sequel bait but there is actually a sequel. 2007’s Planet Raptor.
A river of lava runs through it.
Well at least I get my helicopter shots in Raptor Island
Heck, I even get to see the inside of a heliocopter.
And we get big boats. I cannot lie.
The world is Raptor Island’s bathtub.
Seriously, was this filmed in someone’s bathtub?
And we get an exploding volcano.
Something about an island with dinosaurs seems just to set these volcanoes off.
Allow me to use this uncharastically cool shot from Raptor Island to shamelessly plug my upcoming novel Snowcano.
Lorenzo Lamas almost pulls off this stupid helmet… almost.
Hayley DuMond is a pretty talented actress. I cannot figure out how they convinced her to be in Raptor Island.
Okay, that makes more sense.
Raptor Island is supposed to take place in the South China Sea filled with pirates.
Not a forest filled with Bulgarians.
Seriously, Raptor Island looks like it was filmed down the street from 2008’s Defiance.
Instead of Nazis, we have dinosaurs. What we needed was Nazi dinosaurs in the style of Iron Sky: The Coming Race or Kung Fury.
This is just an alarm clock isn’t it.
My favorite scene from First Blood but with dinosaurs.
Your honor, I think case closed on the viewers vs the CGI.
Rich Hall has a bit where he complains about cosmetic testing on rabbits. Stating that rabbits are already cute and all that makeup makes them look like three dollar whores. Well, I think we can now conclude that testing lipstick on velociraptors has the same effect.