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Tyrannosaurus Azteca (2007)
Firearms Are Totally Impotent Against Dinosaurs
All day now I've been watching dinosaurs, and all day they've had the same fundamental problem.
They don't believe in firearms. They just don't seem to have been _told_ about them or something. Bullets _bounce_ off of dinosaurs! Maybe it's because they became extinct millions of years before the invention of gunpowder, and the laws of physics were just different back then... Aah, no. Come on. If they're close enough to chemically operate today, they'd have to be vulnerable to fast (even subsonic) lead projectiles. It's that simple.
Look, the toughest-skinned reptiles on the planet today, alligators and crocodiles, are completely vulnerable to basic rifle fire. They're nothing magic. You can shoot a pistol round right through the heavy scales on their backs. They don't take armor-piercing bullets or anything special. Small bullets penetrate them, they just don't kill them. Somewhat (but not REALLY) large bullets are preferred because the challenge (as with most game) is to kill the animal with one shot, so it doesn't run. (Hunters consider it immoral to allow prey to run off and die unharvested.)
Most animals, including predators, are easily repelled by gunfire. Between the noise, and the pain of even a non-lethal wound, most will run away. An exception are big bears, which are so fearless that they're merely enraged by mortal wounds. Cape buffalo are regarded as highly dangerous because they are well known to charge when wounded. We've seen video of the big bulls of a herd of cape buffalo rescuing a calf from an entire pride of lions. A big cat will run if it can, but if it can't it will charge as a final act of desperation. Where a T.Rex would fit in this spectrum is unknown. Their behavior simply has not been observed. With these larger animals, safe hunting becomes a matter of applying an appropriately large and powerful projectile, and/or applying several of them rapidly enough to counter its charge. With a T.Rex, of course, this could be a serious problem. I've seen a T.Rex skull (they have one in the museum downtown) and carrying a gun big enough to bust that might be impractical. Chewing its neck off with lots of smaller fire might be a more viable approach. Small bullets would still _penetrate_ them, they wouldn't just bounce off just because the animal is too big to easily kill!
So here we have Cortez and his men (this is _before_ the famous Mexican campaign, apparently) captured by American natives and scheduled for sacrifice on the pyramid. It appears that all those human sacrifices were about appeasing the bloodthirst of the pair of T.Rexes that terrorized the continent in the day. Rather than just having their hearts cut out and being fed to the lizards, Cortez et al talk the Aztecs into letting them hunt & kill them. OK, maybe they don't have M-16s like the guys in the "Carnosaur" series, but they _do_ have flintlocks, crossbows, pointed sticks (big ones, made from trees) and swords. Maybe that's a little less uneven than squads of soldiers with full auto, but they've several guys and I'd quickly bet on them over a dinosaur. Oh, wait, there's a _cannon_, about a 4-incher. That's just the ticket for busting a Tyrannosaurus' skull! So they lay a trap, with a squad of men, cannon, pointed sticks in a ravine, and lure the first T.Rex into it, using a pretty brown girl as bait. Cortez points out that they'll NOT have time to reload, so they'll have to close the range until they can be certain of their aim. T.Rex totally ignores their volley of flintlock fire, and we see both a crossbow bolt _and_ the cannon ball _bounce_ off! Forget it. End of credibility. A crossbow bolt would defeat Cortez' torso armor, and a 4" cannon ball might penetrate the hull of a wooden ship! This would also _certainly_ get through the hide, ribcage, or skull of any animal ever to walk this planet. (Do you think a _whale_ could withstand a 4" cannon ball?) And here's T.Rex, still standing, not even bleeding. So Cortez lures it to the ravine, where it falls onto the pointed sticks, which (I guess by magic) penetrate it and kill it. Yaaay, pointed sticks!
The dinos aren't completely invulnerable to gunfire - they manage to put out an eye of the second one with a pistol. This runs it off, so it's NOT as mean as a bear or a buffalo, at least in the movies.
They kill the second dinosaur with a bomb - made from a gourd filled with gunpowder and gemstones. My money would still be on the cannon. It's engineered function is to concentrate all the gunpowder's energy in one direction - toward the target. A bomb is a much more diffused application of force. A _real_ bomb (NOT a gourd bomb) has a steel casing which contains the explosion to extremely high pressure. (Think: pipe bomb vs firecracker.) A pile of gunpowder set on fire will simply go POOF. (Trust me on that one.)
Pterodactyl (2005)
Firearms are totally impotent - especially against dinosaurs
"...So 'Bulldog' Heinlein got a _daughter_?!" (repeated in disbelief)
Hard for me to believe, too. That's not that common a name. Later on, a chick named Zelazny comes to a dramatic end. Zero possibility of coincidence there. Admittedly, it was my third trip through this mess and I was pretty bored, but as I started catching names the alert rang in my head. Professor _Lovecraft_?
OK, yeah, there they are, in the "Trivia": A 'who's who' of SciFi / Fantasy authors. At least I'm not the _only_ one who noticed that.
It's really too bad that the screenplay writer can't write a gunfight as well as he drops names. From the reviews I'd say "Coolio" is much better known nowadays than those other guys. IMHO Samuel L. Jackson, Wesley Snipes & Gina Torres make far more convincing soldiers. I mean, that "Coolio" guy is _short_!
At least "Kate Heinlein" was able to prove that the pterodactyls weren't _totally_ impervious to gunfire by taking out one (of the smaller ones) with a handgun. This is the only linkage I can find between any of the SciFi authors and their namesakes, as RAH's brief naval career was as a gunnery officer, calculating over-the-horizon trajectories for BIG (like 12-inch) guns mounted on ships.
I give it two stars, but only because I just sat through three "Carnosaur" movies which were much worse. It doesn't rate any better due to the severe impotence of the firearms in every engagement. I don't care if they _are_ pterodactyls, NO creature can take whole magazines of .223 fire from multiple SpecForces soldiers (who, despite the prejudices of the movie-making industry, _can_ hit what they're shooting at) and just keep flying. Maybe a T.Rex might walk away, maybe, if the shooter was _really_ sloppy, but even he'd be - uh - "peeved" off, and bleeding, not simply _unaffected_. But that's a different movie...
I personally wouldn't hesitate to take up an M-16 (full auto) and 2 magazines (60 rounds) against a T.Rex (or an elephant, or a lion) any day. If I couldn't take it out, I'd _deserve_ to die. Same thing for a pterodactyl. They're big, but they're still flesh and bone.
Here's Cortez now ("Aztec Rex"). He and his men are going after a pair of T.Rexes - with flintlocks, crossbows, pointed sticks, and swords. That's a little more even. And it looks a LOT better than the ones in "Carnosaur", too. Oh, wait - they've got a cannon, about 4-inch. Nevermind the even match. But a ball from it just _bounced_ off? Here we go again!
Spiders II: Breeding Ground (2001)
Actually, Not So Bad. Finally A Decent Creature Movie On Sci-Fi!
Maybe it was because I just got finished trying to watch "BloodMonkey", which was SO horrible that it inspired me to set up an IMDb account and contribute a review.
Maybe it was because I was then trying to write my review for "BloodMonkey" while watching "Spiders II" and wasn't paying _real_ close attention. I guess I missed the worst of the plot holes, like _why_ the Mad Doctor was growing all those giant spiders, or _why_ he had to feed them people, rather than something somewhat easier to get, like, say, sheep or cattle. This was still far better than BloodMonkey's "let's just go hiking out in the forest, where the Professor knows about (but has completely underestimated) some giant-brained monkeys!"
Maybe it was just the quality contrast between "BloodMonkey" and "Spiders II", but this strikes me as the best Sci-Fi Creature Feature that I can readily pull out of my memory (I mean, just _none_ stand out as even decent). Admittedly it was _far_ short of great, and it started out a bit slow after the first (action) scene, and the effects (particularly the sinking of the protagonists' boat) were on the cheap side (After their boat sank, I honestly do not believe that they actually shot Niznik & Kromer in actual water. It looked like they added the water in postproduction). But giant spiders with sharp, pointy teeth can be convincingly scary without having to be really perfect. Except that they made a lotta growling and bellowing noise (another reviewer compared this to elephants). Spiders don't make noise, do they? Neither do people, when they get a pair of giant spider's fangs stuck through both of their lungs. I did NOT, however, find myself shouting at characters for making unbelievably stupid mistakes with the worst possible timing, which is how I would invite violent assault if I were to attempt to watch, for example, "BloodMonkey" in a public theater.
In fairness, I had Stephanie Niznik mistaken for Milla Jovovitch throughout. Go ahead, shoot me, but I've never watched either of them much. They're both pretty easy on the eyes. Water sticks to neither of them, unfortunately, which is a shame. I recall Milla going swimming in "Resident Evil" and thinking we were gonna be in for a potentially great wet little-red-dress sequence. Alas, no. They hadda dry her off to continue filming. I was getting my hopes up for something similar when Niznik stripped to her tank top. I mean, there's water dripping from the upper deck everywhere, it's only a matter of time before she gets soaked. No, sorry, can't go there, even if the movie _does_ have an R rating. On Sci-Fi, of course, they had to cut all sex, nudity, and language, derating this movie to PG. Too bad. There was a shower scene which could have really fried, but more likely didn't, anyway. I'd go rent it, but I'll bet it wasn't that big of a deal.
Practically all of the action is concentrated into the last half-hour (make that 20 minutes without commercial breaks), ramping up just before and pretty much 'officially beginning' with the aforementioned mild stripdown. It took 'Alexandra' an amazingly long time to realize that her husband was _right_, there _was_ something seriously fishy going on onboard the boat that had rescued them. Hubby had been trying to tell her this for about two days, but she'd ignored his concerns until he disappeared. It finally came together for her only when the Captain locked her into his cabin with him, a nice dinner, and a bottle of wine. It's from there out that Stephanie Niznik (and, in fairness, the script) makes this movie as good as it is. Reminiscent of Milla in "Resident Evil" and Sigourney Weaver's multiple "Alien*" performances, she's scared but fairly cool (if not quite as frosty as Ripley), quick, and determined. She forcibly denies the horny captain's advance, kneeing him (and a few sailors, as well) in the groin, and generally does a fine job once the fighting starts, using whatever weapon is at hand, improvising when there's none, and never ever indulging in 'screaming just for the sake of it'. She _never_ gives up (even when faced with going _back_ inside, a la Ripley, to fetch a vaccine and save Hubby's life), and is sharp enough to be the only character in the movie who doesn't let a spider sneak up upon them. The bottom line is that she manages to save not only her own ass, but her husband's as well. She tallied up an excellent accounting for any action heroine, except when she tried to interrogate the Mad Doctor by pressing a gun to his forehead (instead of shooting out a kneecap at range), which was her only serious mistake. It didn't quite cost her, though, 'cuz a spider snuck up behind the Doctor just in time! Gratuitous? Of course, but amusing anyway, particularly because they only did it _once_. Every other win, she had to _earn_.
The final scene, which was probably a reprise of the finale of the first "Spiders" movie, seemed forced and out of place.
I can't leave out the pair of spiders on the deck which were indulging in a tug-of-war over one of the sailors. It's entertaining little details like that which lift decency up over crap, and "Spiders II" has almost enough of them, while also easing up on the futile screams.
I'd be maybe tempted to give it more than 5 stars, but come on, we're talking about a late-night Sci-Fi Creature Feature here, which can't possibly count as more than a "B" grade movie at best. The Filthy Critic might even give it three fingers, if he saw it uncut, and was feeling generous, and liked Stephanie. It would depend on the shower scene.
Bloodmonkey (2006)
Wanna See Multiple Scathing Reviews?
1. Look up whatever's next on Sci-Fi. (I use Zap2It, YMMV, it really doesn't matter.)
2. If it's not Stargate, and it is a movie, copy the title. If it's Stargate, or another TV program (not a movie), look down the schedule for the next movie and copy its title.
3. Go to IMDb and paste the aforementioned movie title into the search box (assuming you're too lazy to just type it. This also eliminates typos.)
4. (Maybe) pick the appropriate entry from a disambiguation list.
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page where the review is, and hit the link that says: "More".
6. Presto. (No, slashdotters, there's no 'profit' step here. Move along.)
Really. Every movie I see on Sci-Fi is worse than the one before. In one, it's man-eating baboons. In this, it's man-eating - well, I'd say from the title monkeys, but it really could be just about anything, 'cause the production was _so_ cheap that we never got a decent look at it/them!
Oh, no, wait! There, we got _one_ good look, in the final second. OK. It _is_ a monkey. A big one.
Let's see if I can be more specific: the characters are a bunch of squealing twits whom we're glad to see die, the story is so formulaic it should have never been filmed, the cinematography is as bad and the special effects are about nonexistent. I mean one of the main ingredients of a creature feature is a creature, _some_ creature, preferably something scary. This is absent.
There. That's it.
Stupidest. Movie. Ever.
In fairness, there was _one_ good line: "My rappelling harness is riding up into... uh, someplace it _shouldn't_!"
I swear, they oughta call it the "Stupidity, Horror, and Sci-Fi Channel", because that's the order of their priorities.
PLEASE! CAN'T _SOMEONE_ MAKE THEM STOP?!
*** READ NO FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANNA SEE SPOILERS!!! YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! ***
It's apparently a gorilla with a brain far larger than a human's. Which means _nothing_, lots of animals have larger brains than people, it's brain / body size ratio that matters. Just one more technical detail they messed up. But this big brain supposedly makes it so smart that it easily hunts down and slaughters a pack of anthropology students. If it were _really_ so smart, it would have quit this stupid picture early on, much like the ape-man in MAD Magazine's parody of "2001". (Well, I guess that dates _me_, doesn't it?) In this case, slaughtering the students is no big thing, as they're all so ineffective that all they can do is scream a lot. In fairness to the script, it would be easy to suppose that this batch has been hand-picked by their Mad Professor as bait for a hunting expedition. The hunter, however, fares no better than the bait, despite being armed with a Kalashnikov. Neither does the Professor himself.
Amusing goofs:
Rappelling is about the easiest and funnest thing you can do in the mountains, other than, perhaps, sex with yer fellow hikers. Control is a no-brainer, and it's just not that scary. It's the climb _back_up_ that's a bummer.
When yer tent gets peed on by something with a stream the size of a garden hose, it's gonna be immediately obvious that it's _not_ rain, and it's _not_ somebody's filthy bandage on their sprained ankle, either.
When both sides of someone's chest are punctured, either from Kalashnikov fire or multiple wooden stakes, both lungs deflate and the subject does _not_ scream or talk. All they can do is die.