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Wednesday 14 January 2015

Cheapo DVD Review: 100 Million BC (2008)



A crack navy SEAL team is given an astonishing new mission. They are to rescue a team of Navy personnel who were working on a top secret project but ended up stranded in hostile terrain.

 Where it gets interesting is that said team went missing in 1949. And the hostile terrain in question?

 The Cretaceous.

Before I say anything else let me just quickly give you some important information.
This film is by The Asylum.

If you've encountered their work before then you will know that normal film-making standards do not apply.

To be fair, at first things aren't too bad. You're not in the presence of cinematic greatness but the film is shaping up to be a watchable, low-budget SF affair.
 The actors are decent enough, the writing is somewhat cliched but within acceptable parameters and somebody's tried to make these people and their mission something I should care about. So we're Ok so far...

  But then, in true Asylum fashion, as soon as the first dinosaur shows up any vestiges of credibility crumble into cheese-scented ash.
 The graphics really are appalling. The T. Rex that's the primary threat is like something from a Playstation  game. That's a PS1.
 Among other things, the creature design team gave it comically oversized legs and a definite waddle.

 There's also some blatantly-obvious CGI used on the human characters at certain points. It looks crap and I honestly have no idea why they did it., unless the Asylum were hoping to shave some money off their insurance premiums by having sprites do certain stunts.

 Other money-saving efforts can be seen in the street scenes once the action moves back to the present day.

 There's a frigging great dinosaur stomping about the city  - but nobody apart from the heroes seems to have even noticed. Traffic is still flowing normally, as an example. Almost as if The Asylum ran a helicopter over LA at night time and just used that footage.

Speaking of not noticing; at one point the T. Rex - three stories tall, vivid red and apparently wearing the theropod equivalent of enormous clown shoes - casually ambles up to a garbage collection team without an single one of them noticing. It ends badly for them but Darwinism exists for a reason, folks.

 I have to admire the cast for trying to do their best and if the FX team weren't using a Nintendo 64 to do their graphics then 100 Million BC might have been significantly more watchable.

How much did I pay for this? 75p
Was it worth it?  Debatable.  Unless you are an afficianado of microbudget Creature Features then I would not advise picking up this DVD.


 Here's the trailer. 

That's all folks. 


2 comments:

  1. Hi Dale, Now that's a great 'warts and all' review. I take it this film is no threat to Jurassic Park, but then again the truly appalling movie genre can have an ironic appeal all its own.

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    1. Sometimes a bad movie can be much more fun than the latest critically-acclaimed drama. Well, if you're me, anyway.

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