Michael's Movie Grade: C
An okay dinosaur flick.
In this film a suburban family sees a bright light shine above their house accompanied by a mysterious noise. After this they find their whole neighborhood is now being overrun by dinosaurs.
This film does have a corny B-movie charm. The movie never takes itself too seriously and that is what keeps it entertaining despite its flaws. There is a certain cheesy charm to watching a family on the run from dinosaurs or seeing dinosaurs destroy a suburban neighborhood. It helps that the dinos are visually impressive and they are given many scenes which create some good tension. When the movie focuses on this it is actually quite fun.
However, this movie tries to be a family drama at the same time as being a dinosaur action flick. One can feel that director/writer David Robert Mitchell is trying to channel Steven Speilberg's most popular efforts of the 1970's, 80's and early 90's (the film is even set in 1982) by mixing family drama, danger and fantasy. One can see shades of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. and Poltergeist here, yet this movie does reach the same heights as those classics. The reason it doesn't is simple, the human characters never feel real to us. They are simple archetypes without anything more to them. In other words, they are bland as can be. A talented cast (lead by the always wonderful Anne Hathaway) does their best but are still unable to make these characters even slightly interesting. It doesn't help that these characters (even ones that are supposed to be very smart) keep making decisions that are incredibly dumb, even by monster movie standards.
I don't know this for certain, but it feels like a lot was cut out of this movie before its release that would have made certain parts make more sense. Whether this is the case or not there are many times where a plot point or a character shows up and then doesn't seem to have a reason for being there. The son has a crush on a young girl and that girl later joins the family in surviving the dinosaurs. Yet this girl ends up contributing nothing to the story and that the son has a crush on her is never followed up. It is hard not to wonder if there are a bunch of deleted scenes that would make this character's inclusion make sense.
One thing that is truly outstanding about this film is Michael Giacchino's score, which gives this movie a real epic and retro feel that fits the film perfectly.
This movie makes for an enjoyable trip to the movies, even if it is far from a great film.
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