Review of Anonymous Rex

Anonymous Rex (2004 TV Movie)
Like a long, dull episode of The Invisible Man.
5 December 2004
In case you didn't know, the dinosaurs didn't become extinct, they developed holographic disguises and now live among us. These disguises don't work very well, and in the two hours of the movie we see quite a few of the dinosaurs running around in public looking like bargain basement CGI versions of the Sleestaks from Land of the Lost, but apparently this has worked to keep their existence a secret for thousands of years. They also get stoned on common household spices. They each have their own scent, which only other dinosaurs can smell. As you might expect, these scents include things like flowers, crabs, and even peaches and creme. They are ruled by various secret councils who sit around and play some sort of dinosaur dominoes in the back of Chinese take out restaurants.

So, you buyin' all that? Okay, then here's the plot.

The story focuses on Vincent Rubio (Trammell) and his partner Ernie Watson (Baldwin), a pair of detectives who uncover a secret dino society which wants to go to war with the humans. Ernie's daughter (the peaches and creme girl) gets kidnapped, and in the movie's most climactic scene Baldwin's head changes into a miniature stegosaurus and he charges the bad guy (imagine an out of shape grandpa playing make believe with the grandkids) and impales him. It actually would have looked more realistic if they would have gone to K-Mart and bought a dinosaur Halloween costume (surely they're on clearance this time of the year?).

The movie takes its ridiculous premise and winks (a lot) and chuckles at it, while at the same time trying to pull off a detective drama. I guess it sort of works on some level, if you're extremely bored and there's nothing else on TV and you you spent all day watching paint dry or something. It also takes dullness to new and unprecedented lows, of course as soon as you see the name "Baldwin" in the credits you know that's a given. The only "excitement" is when either of the female leads show up and you at least get to see an interesting character on screen for a minute or so. Some movies provide us with interesting characters throughout; It would probably be a good idea to watch one of those instead. Maybe you could check out an old episode of the Sci-Fi Channel's Invisible Man series, which was basically the same thing as this except its attempts at humor were successful. And its characters were exciting, and its CGI wasn't comedic, and its plots were interesting, and... Okay, maybe not a good comparison.
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