Jurassic Island – Film Review

A group of adventurers and scientists arrives at the mythical lost world Jurassic Island, where it becomes clear that the previous team had run into disaster. Dinosaurs and toxic leeches lead to a battle for survival.

Ah, yes – I have gotten to that point in the year where I feel like watching some movies that I fully know are going to be incredibly dumb just for the sake of watching some bad movies to get a bit of a refresher from all of the great ones I’ve seen recently. On my mission to find the worst of the worst, I didn’t have to look longer than about a minute before I stumbled upon Dominic Nutter‘s Jurassic Island, which aims to be just as good as… well… you know – Jurassic Park.

And also, as you probably guessed, this film isn’t even close to being as good as Steven Spielberg‘s classic dinosaur adventure film. Jurassic Island is a crazy movie from beginning to end. Throughout the course of its running time (which thankfully is very short at seventy-seven minutes), we are treated to some of the most insane, confusing, hilarious, and mind-numbingly boring scenes of the year so far.

One of the only thing this movie has going for it is that it doesn’t feature some incredibly stupid plot that makes you scratch your head from the get-go. It’s basically just about a group of people stuck on an island that just so happens to be inhabited by dinosaurs. Honestly, with the right screenwriter and director attached, it could’ve been good. The story doesn’t go to ridiculous lengths (see Ebola Rex for example), and it takes place on one island, so it feels contained.

But even still, that doesn’t mean the movie has any sort of redeeming qualities to it whatsoever. From the moment it starts all the way to the closing credits, Jurassic Island is a humongous misfire of epic proportions. The script by Dominic Ellis and Tom Jolliffe is extremely bland and unimaginative. Sure, the story isn’t ridiculous as I mentioned earlier as a plus, but, sadly, this writing duo struggled to come up with a script that feels engaging and interesting.

The aforementioned Jurassic Park was also set in one location and focused on a group of people struggling to stay alive, but that film actually boasted a smart script. It had characters that received excellent development to the point where, by the end of the film, you genuinely cared about them all. On top of that, the film had brilliant dialogue that speaks wonderfully about the dangers of these animals and why they shouldn’t roam free.

Jurassic Island doesn’t have any characters that are likable, mainly because they just don’t get any development at all throughout the course of the film. And the dialogue is nowhere near as sharp as it is in Jurassic Park. If you’re looking for some solid dinosaur entertainment, you already know where to look (hint: it’s not here).