Image via Universal Studios
There's stil a bit of time before the next installment of the Jurassic Franchis. Fallen Kingdom came out a couple years ago and Dominion is delayed.
Until the last movie the only thing to keep people at bay has been the excellent Camp Cretaceous but sometimes you just need a little more.
But there was a small taste of of live action dinosaur scare in between.
The Battle at Big Rock is a short film that takes place after Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Battle At Big Rock.
I was pretty excited for this after I read about it.
I thought Fallen Kingdom was a mess but I liked where the movies were going. I couldn’t wait for a movie where humans had to contend with dinosaurs in the wild.
While I was hoping for a Planet of the Apes but with dinosaurs — knowing how absolutely dumb that is but I would watch every second of it. Colin Trevorrow dashed my hopes of dino-pocalypse but it could still be interesting to see how people handle dinosaur attacks, not on some far away island, but in their backyards.
And so, this brings me to Battle At Big Rock.
It aired last night and the short film is available online today.
Now let’s talk about the movie.
Spoilers ahead.
There’s a family. There’s some clunky dialogue.
They’re in a campground for some reason. I love the woods. I live in the woods for most of the year. The last place I would be — if there was a possibility of a T-Rex curb stomping my camper — would be the woods.
We see the family get a little background.
Then, the reason we’re all watching show up.
An adult Natsuceratops and its child enter the camp. There’s a moment of horror followed by wonder as these people see a dinosaur for the first time.
But, in true Jurassic Park fashion, danger isn’t far away. An Allosaurus shows up and things get intense. There’s an encounter between the dinosaurs but the Natsuceratops get away.
This is when things get interesting. The couple’s baby cries drawing the attention of the massive predator who then destroys their camper. It’s a bit of combination of both the flipped jeep scene in Jurassic Park and the bus attack in The Lost World.
The parents distract and manage to fend of the initial attacks, until of all things the Allosaurus is shot with a crossbow by the little girl like she’s a pint sized Daryl Dixon.
The most interesting part comes during the credits which shows dinosaur encounters all over the world.
If this is what we’re getting in the third installment then I’m very excited.
The Bad
It’s hard to get people to care in eight minutes, but like I said earlier the dialogue was pretty clunky.
It seems really dumb to be camping when there are dinosaurs abound. They try to get around it by saying they didn’t think they’d be up this far, but ummm dinosaurs.
It was cool that the little girl saved them, but there’s no way she can load a crossbow.
The Good
The direction was good. Once the dinosaurs showed up the action was intense and it was well shot.
The dinosaurs looked great.
The encounters shown over the world.
They did not shy away from any frightening imagery. The family looked like goners.
It was nice to see some of the other dinosaurs for a change.
Final Thought
All in all it was well down and I for one am never going to be mad getting to watch dinosaurs wreck stuff.
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