JURASSIC ISLAND is a super silly dino adventure from director Dominic Ellis. Sometimes you watch a movie that’s so inexplicable in its existence, so groan-inducing, and so boring, that you just hold your head in your hands. JURASSIC ISLAND is one of those movies. It feels low-effort to the extreme. JURASSIC ISLAND is a bewildering zombie/dinosaur combo that manages to do almost nothing of interest.
Don’t worry about catching up on Jurassic Park sequels – – JURASSIC ISLAND has nothing to do with those movies. It has barely anything to do with dinosaurs or zombies, either.
Ava (Sarah T. Cohen) goes looking for her father (Tony Goodall), on an expedition to Jurassic Island. She brings a few friends with her. Jamila Wingett plays Cassie, a scholar looking for an adventure, and Ava’s boyfriend Luke (Alistair Stoneman) joins them as their hapless sidekick. They hire a boat captain, Michael, (Ricardo Freitas), who’s been hitting the bottle hard, and set off for an adventure.
When they arrive, it’s clear that the research team who came before them has run into some trouble. They encounter blood-sucking leeches that start turning people into zombies — and of course, this is a dinosaur island, so danger lurks around every corner.
If JURASSIC ISLAND were funnier, gorier, or scarier, it could be a B movie, even an acclaimed “so bad it’s good” midnight movie. But no way — it’s bland and boring, and those are some of the worst things a movie can be.
It feels critical to talk about the dinosaurs in this movie, which look goofier than any I’ve seen in recent memory. The dinosaurs in this movie wouldn’t fool even the youngest of infants (see the trailer if you don’t believe me). Looking like stickers pasted on a screen, the dinosaurs walk around and roar, but there’s not much tension built by such silly effects. It looks poorer than a YouTube video.
JURASSIC ISLAND takes on big ideas for horror movies and then splatters the screen with distracting CGI. This could have aspired to be campy and over the top, like Tammy and the T-Rex or the Sharknado series. But for a movie about both dinosaurs and zombies, it manages to make both feel excruciatingly dull, a feat I did not know was possible up until this point in time.
JURASSIC ISLAND is directed by Dominic Ellis, who has a background as a cinematographer with movies like Medusa, Below the Surface, and Chinese Girls in London. He worked in collaboration with Proportion Productions, who are known for creature features and low-budget movies, like Bats, Pet Graveyard, and Hatched. This is a creature feature that flops hard, and I don’t recommend anyone should watch it.
JURASSIC ISLAND will be released digitally on April 5, and on DVD on April 12.
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