I shouldn't be utterly baffled at the existence of a film like this, given the existence of many other imitators of trashy A-List blockbuster films, but I am. Cowboys vs. Dinosaurs. It's like someone said "we can't do a direct ripoff of Jurassic World or Cowboys vs. Aliens, so let's just throw them both into a bucket and see what happens". While the idea seems utterly ridiculous - a mining explosion in a western town unleashing God's rejected tyrant lizards upon modern Earth - I have to admit the title is a hell of an eye-catcher and it alone interested me enough to see this movie.
Five minutes in, I almost immediately bailed out.
Since I already mentioned its only good sequel, consider the opening to Jurassic Park. A team of the park's workers are working to get a raptor into containment when it breaks out and drags one of the workers into its cage, eating the man alive. Now, you never completely see the Raptor, but the scene is fraught with tension and mystery. You wonder what kind of creature could do this to a grown man, how the protagonists can possibly stop it or even hope to survive it. You feel invested.
At the five minute mark of Cowboys vs. Dinosaurs, we are introduced to their version of raptors...which are CGI that the Syfy Channel would be embarrassed of attacking a bunch of assault rifle-wielding mooks we don't care about. In full view. There's no mystique, no build up. Just explosion and then raptors as if Michael Bay suddenly got a hold of the rights to the Jurassic Park franchise (don't you dare, Bay!). This encounter pretty much sets the tone for the entire film, and it never, ever stops.
As I said in the beginning, the film begins with a mining team accidentally unleashing dinosaurs which proceed to eat several of the miners and lead to a cave in from an explosion. That's not the end, alas, as we are given several subplots to juggle at once. There's that of the return of Val (Rib Hilis), nicknamed "the Cowboy" by the town, who apparently has some kind of past relationship with another character Sky (Casey Fitzgerald) that ended badly and thus he hasn't been to the town in some time and is currently at odds with the Sheriff (John Freeman), Sky's new boyfriend.
Then there's Sinclair (Sara Malakul Lane) who is on the payroll of a Mr. Marcus (Vernon Wells) and trying to get the mine reopened following the accident as well as holding together her wavering reputation being that she's fresh out of college and a flight risk for her company. And then there's the one survivor of the mining incident Quaid (Kelcey Watson), who tries to warn everyone but is just written off as a crazed lunatic suffering from survivor's guilt. So, basically, he's our Crazy Ralph for the evening.
Oh, and Val's father (Eric Roberts) is in jail because...town drunk? Not really sure what the deal is.
You know what all the subplots are lacking? A reason to care. In the beginning, only Quaid's crosses over with the plot, with him discovering the first of the elusive raptor's victims. And, like any sensible American in any given hypothetical combat situation, he gets his guns...which leads to the most over the top sequence (and a welcome change from most of the bad acting) where he takes on a raptor with an AK-47, screaming in a way that would make Rambo proud.
Really, besides the bizarre choice of trying to marry the warring genres of the Western and Science Fiction, it's your standard monster movie. Something is discovered, it kills people, the officials in charge of the area either can't or won't do anything about it because money, and it ends up being up to a group of ragtag regular folks to handle the situation. Add in some vaguely explained backstory and you basically have "Monster Movie 101" ready to go.
Unfortunately, a tried and true plot does not make a tried and true movie. The acting is bad, and I mean atrocious. Most of the actors severely under act and give reads of their lines as though English isn't a first language of theirs, and the pauses in some exchanges are way too long, such as a point before Sinclair "angrily" tells Marcus to not point at her face. There are leaps in logic by characters that make no sense. And, as I've maligned it before, the CGI on the dinosaurs is just hilariously bad, especially when more flood into the plot following another detonation (because, y'know, if it's worth being stupid once...). On the other hand, one of the few places where I'll give this film credit are in the practical make up effects.
Though the wounds caused by the various dinosaurs are very gory, I wonder why they left corpses in such good condition after chowing down.
But really, I can't get onto this movie too much. For what it is, it's actually rather enjoyable. It's one of those "so bad, it's good" kind of films. The only thing that keeps it from being truly awesome is the fact that focus is placed on the wrong character. Our main character shouldn't be Val, it should be Quaid. He has a stake in the events from the beginning, wanting to avenge his friends who were killed in the first mine detonation. He's the one to first take on one of the raptors and learn of their reliance on methane, which leads to their eventual defeat (read: BOOOOOOOOOOOM!). He even takes charge in a crisis situation when he and several other characters are boarded up in a bar Shaun of the Dead style. It makes sense and it gives the audience a way to sympathize with him, thus making him more relatable.
And we're supposed to care about Val and his issues with Sky because...umm...err...uhmm...
That being said, the film goes into full on insanity mode in the last twenty minutes, dropping the character building and completely embracing the campiness of the idea of raptors fighting a bunch of hillbilly townies. Now, am I disappointed that we didn't get an awesome climax of Ransik and Alex Grady teaming up to fight dinosaurs? Yeah, but at least they didn't do something insanely stupid with this concept like they could have. It's dumb action shlock that spits into the face of science, flips it off, and then blows up a town for shits and giggles. It's not Oscar bait for certain, but it isn't trying to be. It's just trying to be dumb science fiction and, as dumb science fiction, some enjoyment can be found in it.
Cowboys vs. Dinosaurs is a production of The Oracle Film Group and distributed by Marvista Entertainment in the USA,
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