''The Dinosaur Project'' is a 2012 British
found footage science fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
adventure film
The adventure film is a broad genre of film. Some early genre studies found it no different than the Western film or argued that adventure could encompass all Hollywood genres. Commonality was found among historians Brian Taves and Ian Cameron in ...
directed by
Sid Bennett, who also co-wrote the film with Jay Basu. It stars
Richard Dillane
Richard Dillane (born 1964) is an English actor. He appears in ''Soldier Soldier'' (1995), ''Cold Feet'' (2000), ''Space Race'' (2005), '' Tristan & Isolde'' (2006), '' Spooks'' (2007), ''Casualty'' (2008-2009), ''Oranges and Sunshine'' (2010), ' ...
, Peter Brooke,
Matthew Kane,
Natasha Loring, Stephen Jennings, Andre Weideman with Abena Ayivor and Sivu Nobongoza.
''The Dinosaur Project'' was shot in South Africa. The visual effects for the film were provided by Jellyfish Pictures. The film received a theatrical release in the United Kingdom on 10 August 2012 by
StudioCanal
StudioCanal S.A.S. (formerly known as Le Studio Canal+, Canal Plus, Canal+ Distribution, Canal+ D.A., and Canal+ Production and also known as StudioCanal International) is a French film & television production and distribution company which is a ...
. It garnered mixed reviews from critics and grossed $2,412,576 worldwide. Studiocanal released the film on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
and
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
on 27 February 2013.
Plot
A group of explorers from the British Cryptozoological Society (and two television cameramen) goes on an expedition into the Congo in search of a
cryptid
Cryptids are animals or other beings whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated by science. Cryptozoology, the study of cryptids, is a pseudoscience claiming that such beings may exist somewhere in the wild; it has been widely cri ...
—the so-called
Mokele-mbembe
In several Bantu mythologies, mokele-mbembe (also written as "mokèlé-mbèmbé") is a mythical water-dwelling entity that is believed to exist in the Congo River Basin. It is variously described as a reptilian creature, a spirit, or a member ...
—which is believed to be a
Plesiosaur
The Plesiosauria or plesiosaurs are an Order (biology), order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia.
Plesiosaurs first appeared in the latest Triassic Period (geology), Period, possibly in the Rhaetian st ...
called
Elasmosaurus
''Elasmosaurus'' () is a genus of plesiosaur that lived in North America during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period, at about 80.6 to 77million years ago. The first specimen was discovered in 1867 near Fort Wallace, Kansas, US, and ...
.
The explorers' leader, Jonathan, discovers during the helicopter flight, that his son Luke sneaked into the chopper as a stowaway. Shortly after that, a flock of large flying reptiles (
pterosaur
Pterosaurs are an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 million to 66 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earli ...
s) called
Pteranodon
''Pteranodon'' (; from and ) is a genus of pterosaur that included some of the largest known flying reptiles, with ''P. longiceps'' having a wingspan of over . They lived during the late Cretaceous geological period of North America in presen ...
s appears next to the helicopter, causing the helicopter to crash. Everyone but the pilot escape just before the chopper explodes. Now lost, they discover that the satellite phone they had with them was broken during the crash, Amara, their local guide, suggests to go to the village they saw while in the helicopter. Upon arriving, the group discovers the village destroyed and the villagers dead. Jonathan chooses a hut to stay in for the night while his son installs a night vision camera outside the hut.
At night, everyone is wakened by a swarm of bat-like reptiles (
Jeholopterus
''Jeholopterus'' was a small anurognathid pterosaur known from the Middle to Late Jurassic Daohugou Beds of the Tiaojishan Formation of Inner Mongolia, China, and possibly the Early Cretaceous Sinuiju Formation of North Korea.
Naming
The gen ...
) outside. They try to flee the village because it's infested with the animals. Liz, their medic, is attacked and killed while the rest escape in a pair of wooden boats. After the boats get wrecked by an unseen force they arrive on a small island and decide to camp out for the night. As they talk around the fire they encounter a small unknown
ornithopod
Ornithopoda () is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs, called ornithopods (). They represent one of the most successful groups of herbivorous dinosaurs during the Cretaceous. The most primitive members of the group were bipedal and relatively sm ...
with a frill around its neck (Possibly being a clear homage or reference to the ruff that the
Dilophosaurus
''Dilophosaurus'' ( ) is a genus of theropod dinosaurs that lived in what is now North America during the Early Jurassic, about 186 million years ago. Three skeletons were discovered in northern Arizona in 1940, and the two best preserv ...
from
Jurassic Park
''Jurassic Park'', later referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton, centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of De-extinction#Cloning, cloned dinosaurs. It bega ...
had on its neck'') Being identified by Jonathan as a''
Lesothosaurus
''Lesothosaurus'' is a Monotypic taxon, monospecific genus of ornithischian dinosaur that lived during the Early Jurassic in what is now South Africa and Lesotho. It was named by paleontologist Peter Galton in 1978, the name meaning "lizard from L ...
specimen. It particularly takes a liking to Luke. Luke names it "Crypto" after the term
cryptozoology
Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness ...
for short and decides to attach one of his cameras onto Crypto's neck to see where he would go. The broadcast cuts out as the dinosaurs swim into a cave.
When the broadcast returns, Luke and Charlie see that Crypto went straight to some kind of underground gateway, where the camera is dropped. When they try to steer through a whitewater, Luke's and Charlie's boat gets separated. The rest of the explorers rejoin them in a river canyon, where they encounter a magnificent Elasmosaurus. As they view the beast a vicious
Pliosaur
Pliosauroidea is an extinct clade of plesiosaurs, known from the earliest Jurassic to early Late Cretaceous. They are best known for the subclade Thalassophonea, which contained crocodile-like short-necked forms with large heads and massive toot ...
(
Liopleurodon
''Liopleurodon'' (; meaning 'smooth-sided teeth') is an extinct genus of carnivorous pliosaurid pliosaurs that lived from the Callovian stage of the Middle Jurassic to the Kimmeridgian stage of the Late Jurassic period (c. 166 to 155 mya). T ...
or
Pliosaurus
''Pliosaurus'' (meaning 'more lizard') is an extinct genus of thalassophonean pliosaurid known from the Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian and Tithonian stages) of Europe and South America. This genus has contained many species in the past but recent ...
) suddenly emerges and attacks the group. The Elasmosaurus flees as well. Believing that the rest of the group died, Charlie and Luke continue to search for the place where the dinosaurs came from. When Charlie learns that Luke has fixed the satellite phone, he pushes Luke down into the gateway to kill him.
On the other side of the underground passageway, Luke speaks into the camera, trying to reach the other survivors via the monitor to no avail. Meanwhile, Amara leaves the other survivors, taking one of the boats. Jonathan and Pete continue the search for Luke and Charlie. In the meantime, Luke meets Crypto and follows him deeper into the jungle, where he is attacked by the bat-like creatures. He is rescued by Pete, who chases the creatures into the jungle, when he is suddenly encircled by them and presumably killed. Charlie is seen, speaking to the camera, when he is interrupted and forced to hide by Jonathan and Luke, continuing through the jungle. They follow a steep cliffway, when they are hit by a rockfall caused by Charlie. Luke tries to help his father who is holding onto a rock, but his father ends up falling down the cliff.
Luke hides in the dense jungle, evading Charlie who is chasing him, when he meets Crypto who leads him to the place where he dropped his camera earlier, when suddenly Charlie emerges in front of him, intending to kill him. Crypto spits fluid into Luke's face, when two adult giant theropods with frills (presumably Crypto's parents) appear. Sniffing at Luke and smelling the fluid, they leave him alone, most likely because he smells like one of their offspring, and they brutally kill Charlie.
Luke proceeds into the jungle and stops at a high cliff, filming himself and Crypto, he says that the satellite phone has been crushed again and that he has to destroy the cameras to use the parts, he waves the camera over the view from the cliff, showing a big valley full of dinosaurs from afar which seems there is a herd of large
sauropods
Sauropoda (), whose members are known as sauropods (; from '' sauro-'' + '' -pod'', 'lizard-footed'), is a clade of saurischian ('lizard-hipped') dinosaurs. Sauropods had very long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their b ...
,possibly
Apatosaurus
''Apatosaurus'' (; meaning "deceptive lizard") is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Jurassic period. Othniel Charles Marsh described and named the first-known species, ''A. ajax'', in 1877, a ...
, just like what it seems to be a
Tyrannosaurus rex
''Tyrannosaurus'' () is a genus of large theropoda, theropod dinosaur. The type species ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' ( meaning 'king' in Latin), often shortened to ''T. rex'' or colloquially t-rex, is one of the best represented theropods. It live ...
-like theropod stalking the herd. In the next scene he is seen throwing the backpack down a waterfall into a river. Luke's fate is unknown.
The floating backpack is found by men in a boat, who find video hard drives and tapes labelled "the Dinosaur Project" inside. In a blurry video, Luke says "I think it works" at his father, who survived his fall.
Cast
*
Richard Dillane
Richard Dillane (born 1964) is an English actor. He appears in ''Soldier Soldier'' (1995), ''Cold Feet'' (2000), ''Space Race'' (2005), '' Tristan & Isolde'' (2006), '' Spooks'' (2007), ''Casualty'' (2008-2009), ''Oranges and Sunshine'' (2010), ' ...
as Jonathan Marchant
* Peter Brooke as Charlie Rutherford
*
Matthew Kane as Luke Marchant
*
Natasha Loring as Liz Draper
* Stephen Jennings as Dave Moore
* Andre Weideman as Pete Van Aarde
* Abena Ayivor as Amara
* Sivu Nobogonza as Etienne
Production
Filming
''The Dinosaur Project'' was filmed in South Africa.
Release
Theatrical release
The film was released in cinemas in the UK on 10 August 2012. It was scheduled for release in cinemas worldwide through 2012–13, starting with South-East Asia on 23 August 2012.
Home media
The film was released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
and
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
on 27 February 2013 by
StudioCanal
StudioCanal S.A.S. (formerly known as Le Studio Canal+, Canal Plus, Canal+ Distribution, Canal+ D.A., and Canal+ Production and also known as StudioCanal International) is a French film & television production and distribution company which is a ...
.
Reception
Critical reception
On the
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film has an approval rating of 29% based on 14 critic reviews, with an average rating of 4.30/10.
Philip French of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' wrote, "The CGI monsters are surprisingly convincing and children will identify with the intrepid 15-year-old lad who stows away on his dad's helicopter and turns up trumps by using his computer wizardry." Nigel Andrews of ''
The Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
'' awarded the film 4 out of 5 stars and called it "rip-roaring fun...Feature debutant Sid Bennett's motion-capture movie also does emotion capture. You will jump, gasp, grimace, just like the characters. The creatures are often very creepy. The ''
Cloverfield
''Cloverfield'' is a 2008 American Found footage (film technique), found footage monster movie, monster horror film directed by Matt Reeves and written by Drew Goddard. It stars Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller (in his film debut), Mic ...
''-style dependency on "found footage" means everyone on screen must have a camera, but even that is carried off with dash and nonchalance."
Digital Spy
Digital Spy (DS) is a British-based entertainment, television and film website and brand and is the largest digital property at Hearst UK. Since its initial launch in 1999, Digital Spy has focused on entertainment news related to television pro ...
awarded the movie 3 stars out of 5 and labelled it "Decent found-footage caper...''The Dinosaur Project'' is good and undemanding fun. There are enough sharp claws to overcome the flaws and ensure this is never a dino-bore...
''
Total Film
''Total Film'' was a British film magazine published 13 times a year (published monthly with a summer issue added, between the July and August issues, every year since issue 91, 2004) by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and of ...
'' awarded it three stars out of five and said "Though it's desperate to be the next ''
Jurassic Park
''Jurassic Park'', later referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton, centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of De-extinction#Cloning, cloned dinosaurs. It bega ...
'', there's little
Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg ( ; born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, Spielberg is widely regarded as one of the greatest film directors of all time and is ...
ian bite to this low-budget Brit flick. Instead we get wobbly cameras and equally wobbly acting from a cast of unknowns as a group of explorers hunt dinos in the Congo....Its money shots generally impress, and the breakneck pace bounds over a multitude of sins – including Park's deadly
dilophosaurus
''Dilophosaurus'' ( ) is a genus of theropod dinosaurs that lived in what is now North America during the Early Jurassic, about 186 million years ago. Three skeletons were discovered in northern Arizona in 1940, and the two best preserv ...
getting a makeover as a cute little critter that'll have the nippers cooing." ''
IGN
''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...
'' awarded the film 4 out of ten and said "Writer-director Sid Bennett does manage to eek moments of tension out of the premise, and the vast African vistas glimpsed throughout are a joy to behold...a found footage flick that disappoints at just about every turn, and makes you wish the tapes had remained lost." ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
''s Anthony Quinn awarded the film two stars out of five, writing, "The script stinks like dino-poo... but for all the silliness you may find yourself entertained." ''
SFX'' awarded the film two and a half out of five stars and said "...has just enough charm to be worth a look – particularly if you have kids who like watching giant reptiles eating people...A few unexpected twists that mark it out as interesting (the running order of the deaths isn't quite what you'd expect, for example) and the dinos are a cut above most films of this nature – particularly one little cutie who's basically dino-Lassie. Admirably, the vast majority of the action is shot on location, with some white-water rafting to spice up the scenes with no reptiles in. Despite the plus points, though, it's still a cheesy, childish adventure which tries very hard not to be the TV movie it actually is."
''
Empire
An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...
''s Simon Crook gave the film two stars out of five, calling it "More ''
Terra Nova'' meets ''
Sanctum 3D'' than ''Jurassic Park'' meets ''Cloverfield''."
Box office
''The Dinosaur Project'' grossed $2,412,576 from cinemas worldwide. On its international cinema release, debuting in South East Asia, the movie was a commercial hit, entering the Malaysian box office charts in second position behind ''
The Expendables 2
''The Expendables 2'' is a 2012 American action film directed by Simon West, written by Richard Wenk and Sylvester Stallone and based on a story by Ken Kaufman, David Agosto and Wenk. Brian Tyler returned to score the film. It is the sequel ...
''. On its release in Thailand, The Dinosaur Project attained third spot.
Music
Richard Blair-Oliphant
Richard Blair-Oliphant is a composer of music for film and television. He has been a composer on over 40 projects, including the series '' How the Universe Works'' and '' I Shouldn't Be Alive'', as well as the televised broadcast of the 62nd Prime ...
scored the music for the film and on its soundtrack.
See also
*
List of films featuring dinosaurs
This is a list of films that feature non-avian dinosaurs and other prehistoric (mainly Mesozoic) archosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine reptiles such as mosasaurs and plesiosaurs.
For depictions of avian dinosaurs see :Films about birds.
Live-acti ...
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dinosaur Project, The
2012 films
2012 science fiction films
2010s science fiction adventure films
Films about dinosaurs
Films shot in South Africa
Films set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Films set on fictional islands
Found footage films
British science fiction films
2010s English-language films
2010s British films
Mokele-mbembe
English-language science fiction adventure films
English-language science fiction thriller films
English-language science fiction horror films