Decades ago, a crate filled with weapons grade plutonium crashes on an island and soaks into the ground. Today, a team of military men are sent to track down a notorious terrorist (of ambiguous national origin) and they track him to this polluted island. When their raft is destroyed, the team must spend the night on shore, but soon discover that the plutonium has done something awful to the island -- it has called forth hundreds of bloodthirsty velociraptors.
Let me start this with a lesson: don't lend a movie to your friend before you've seen it, especially if you are supposed to be reviewing it for the internet's finest horror movie site. It took me almost a year to get this film back, and the person who borrowed it still had not watched it (though we ended up seeing it together). And a second, more important, lesson: when you do watch this, keep your expectations as low as humanly possible. Because this film ranks among the worst I've ever seen.
My acting in 8th grade was more convincing than the seasoned actors who appear in this film (Lorenzo Lamas, Stephen Bauer). Line delivery is very fake, and the words themselves are poorly scripted. The opening words come from a man checking out his gun's scope: "Boom. Dead bad guys." Yes, that's pure genius at work. The only conversation with any depth has two main characters explaining their histories. But it, too, seems unnatural and a poor attempt to provide character background and to fill time. We didn't need to know anything about their histories, so why bore us with it? And if you think the conversations are bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
The lighting is atrocious. I generally don't notice lighting, but my friend (a former film school student) was practically vomiting in rage at the way more often than not shadows fell on the actors' faces and the light would be in the background, focused on nothing in particular. Most lighting looks like a spotlight in a dim room, and many of the scenes involve a deep, subterranean cavern -- which you'd then expect to be poorly lit, but had lights coming from all sorts of random angles. Don't ask me why.
The plot was pretty bad. Some films can take the idea of military men chasing a terrorist and make a convincing film out of it. Cat and mouse stories are riveting. Well, not here. The terrorist is really not even part of the story, just an excuse to go to the island. And the raptors? And the allosaurus? Sure, they came from the plutonium that soaked into the ground. But if that makes sense to you, please explain it to me because I have no clue how radiation brings dinosaurs back from millions of years of extinction.
By far the worst part of "Raptor Island" is the animation of the raptors. That's right -- the selling point of the film is the worst aspect. The animation isn't just bad, it's subpar. I can't even express the hilarity of cartoons this cheesy. And when they get shot? Red splats like one would see in an old video game. Even the airplane, helicopter and Navy ship are cartoons... how hard is it to get a model plane? Please don't see "Raptor Island" unless you need a good laugh or want to get sickeningly drunk. Sure, you probably want to see it before you see "Raptor Island 2" (which seems to be getting better reviews). But just avoiding it entirely is your best bet. The closest thing I can compare it to is "Pinata: Survival Island", and unfortunately this film makes the pinata look good by comparison. You have been warned.
Let me start this with a lesson: don't lend a movie to your friend before you've seen it, especially if you are supposed to be reviewing it for the internet's finest horror movie site. It took me almost a year to get this film back, and the person who borrowed it still had not watched it (though we ended up seeing it together). And a second, more important, lesson: when you do watch this, keep your expectations as low as humanly possible. Because this film ranks among the worst I've ever seen.
My acting in 8th grade was more convincing than the seasoned actors who appear in this film (Lorenzo Lamas, Stephen Bauer). Line delivery is very fake, and the words themselves are poorly scripted. The opening words come from a man checking out his gun's scope: "Boom. Dead bad guys." Yes, that's pure genius at work. The only conversation with any depth has two main characters explaining their histories. But it, too, seems unnatural and a poor attempt to provide character background and to fill time. We didn't need to know anything about their histories, so why bore us with it? And if you think the conversations are bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
The lighting is atrocious. I generally don't notice lighting, but my friend (a former film school student) was practically vomiting in rage at the way more often than not shadows fell on the actors' faces and the light would be in the background, focused on nothing in particular. Most lighting looks like a spotlight in a dim room, and many of the scenes involve a deep, subterranean cavern -- which you'd then expect to be poorly lit, but had lights coming from all sorts of random angles. Don't ask me why.
The plot was pretty bad. Some films can take the idea of military men chasing a terrorist and make a convincing film out of it. Cat and mouse stories are riveting. Well, not here. The terrorist is really not even part of the story, just an excuse to go to the island. And the raptors? And the allosaurus? Sure, they came from the plutonium that soaked into the ground. But if that makes sense to you, please explain it to me because I have no clue how radiation brings dinosaurs back from millions of years of extinction.
By far the worst part of "Raptor Island" is the animation of the raptors. That's right -- the selling point of the film is the worst aspect. The animation isn't just bad, it's subpar. I can't even express the hilarity of cartoons this cheesy. And when they get shot? Red splats like one would see in an old video game. Even the airplane, helicopter and Navy ship are cartoons... how hard is it to get a model plane? Please don't see "Raptor Island" unless you need a good laugh or want to get sickeningly drunk. Sure, you probably want to see it before you see "Raptor Island 2" (which seems to be getting better reviews). But just avoiding it entirely is your best bet. The closest thing I can compare it to is "Pinata: Survival Island", and unfortunately this film makes the pinata look good by comparison. You have been warned.