Friday, March 13, 2020

The Jurassic Games (2018)



Streaming Service: Amazon Prime
Movie Name/Year: The Jurassic Games (2018)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Length: 86 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Production/Distribution: High Octane Pictures, Uncork'd Entertainment, New KSM, Netflix
Director: Ryan Bellgardt
Writers: Ryan Bellgardt, Galen Christy
Actors: Ryan Merriman, Adam Hampton, Perrey Reeves, Cate Jones, Erika Daly, Rett Terrell, Dylan Cox, Katie Burgess, Bruce Davis, Luke Wyckoff, Tiger Sheu

Blurb from IMDb: In the near future, 10 death row convicts are forced to compete in a virtual reality game that pits them against dinosaurs and each other.


Cat’s Point of View:
If you let yourself judge the proverbial book by its cover, The Jurassic Games might be easy to look over when browsing titles available on Amazon Prime. The poster certainly promises something that looks like a cheesy B-movie at the very least. There are quite a few dinosaur-themed movies on this particular streaming platform lately. Some of them are decent, and some of them are absolutely abysmal. (I’m looking at you, VelociPastor (2018) …. I digress…)
Thankfully, The Jurassic Games falls on that decent side of the spectrum – almost surprisingly good, even. I didn’t quite expect to be as drawn in with this movie. Nevertheless, I found myself cheering for the main character.


I was outright impressed at the production value for this movie. The CGI was actually pretty great, all things considered. The sets were believable and seemed to integrate smoothly with whatever live locations they may have used for shooting. The dinosaurs didn’t look slapped together. The pterodactyls were a little odd, but even so they weren’t cringe-worthy. The other dino cast exceeded expectations to a degree that little things like that could be easily overlooked.
The director and most of the cast were relatively unknown or fresh faces on the cinematic scene. I think that served this film in particular very well. There was a relatively blank slate for this story to be carved on. At the same time, a few of the cast seemed familiar – even though I hadn’t seen their work before. The only cast member I actually recognized was Ryan Merriman (Pretty Little Liars, Domain, Portal). He fit his role as a television host with questionable morals and lots of charisma.


While the story was a bit predictable, I found that I didn’t mind. I was thoroughly entertained. There were some feelings of nostalgia mixed in for me, as well, due to some similarities to the plot of Deadlock (1991) – though, I believe that film has been renamed to Wedlock. To be honest, it seemed like they threw that movie in a blender with The Running Man (1987), The Condemned (2007), and Gamer (2009) and just flipped it on high for a bit.
All told, I was certainly entertained by The Jurassic Games and wouldn’t mind giving this sci-fi flick a recommendation.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score - 83%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 42%
Metascore – None
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score – 3.8/10
CinemaScore – None

Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 3.5/5

Trust-the-Dice’s Parental Advisory Rating: R

Movie Trailer:

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