Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 10:1	Budget Medium

I don't get cable and when I did the Sci Fi channel was not an option. You would think that this would be the perfect fit for me, I have read Science Fiction since I could read. Heinlein, Clark and Asimov all based their stories on real world science and that has always been my gold standard. I am not a rocket scientist, but I understand the basic laws of motion and logic. While Anonymous Rex only bends the laws of motion, logic is trampled into the ground, spit on, coated with tar and feathers and railroaded out of town.

As the movie opens, our two heroes are chasing someone on foot through town. During the course of the chase Vincent (Sam Trammell) leaps onto a building, nearly falls off but recovers himself and continues on. The camera, however, pans down to the huge gouge he made in the stone facade of the building. This thing is a couple of inches deep. As the chase comes to a close the pair confront their quarry and upon learning that he believes dinosaurs are living among us, Ernie (Daniel Baldwin) snaps the guy's neck. Then the credits roll and a voice over explains what happened. When the big meteor strike happened 65 millions years ago, all the dinosaurs were not wiped out. In fact, there is a thriving community of them even now. When Man came on the scene, they started disguising themselves to pass as human. Using paper and silk masks. In the last 65 million years the dinos got smaller, almost human size, but they still look just like the big old guys. Baldwin's character is in fact a triceratops complete with the horns. Apparently just recently they discovered holographic projectors that mask their features so that they look human, but do not change their body shape, thus the aforementioned claw marks. Before these holo projectors they used rubber masks and before that paper masks and makeup. Sigh. So for the entire existence of civilized society, dinosaurs have been living among us wearing masks and we never noticed. Did you ever see the old Lance Link, Secret Chimp show? If Lance ever tried to actually pass himself off as human, he is not going to fool many people. And chimpanzees look a lot more like people than any dino ever did. We won't even get into the ability to speak issue.

So I am not sure who was supposed to be dumber in this one, the dinos for not just eating the humans as they evolved. Or the humans for not noticing the dinos. Can you image what the pitch meeting must have been like?

Producer: The dinosaurs secretly live among humans.

Sci Fi Network: Wouldn't we notice?

Producer: They were in disguise!

Sci Fi Network: Disguise?

Producer: They wore masks.

Sci Fi Network: Oh. That explains it. Carry on.

At any rate, the main plot of the movie (actually a pilot for a potential series) is about how some of the dinos want to come out of the closet and confront humanity in a very violent way. There are a number of subplots hinted at including a budding romance for Vincent and the revelation that Ernie's daughter is human not a dino. Sigh. At least twice in the movie it is mentioned that dinos can smell or sense each other when they are in the vicinity. Clearly this means that the can discern between humans and dinos, except in the case of Ernie's daughter who has a lot of contact with Vincent and even has a dino boyfriend.

If you take the dinosaur angle out of the movie and simply make the protagonists "different" nothing would really change. There is nothing in the main story line that depends on them being anything other than in disguise. Which is what makes this a polished turd. Some good screenwriters, actors and cinematographers took a pile of crap and gave it a nice glossy shine without ever addressing the fundamental problems with the concept.

I'll be honest with you. This bothers me a lot because of all the time I have spent defending Science Fiction. Way too often I have had people who read John Grissom novels look down their noses at me for reading Isaac Asimov. Despite the fact that the type of fiction I like requires at least a working knowledge of time dilation, conservation of energy, parsecs, quarks, speed of light restrictions, and the time paradox, it is viewed as juvenile fiction. This attitude is clearly evident in the lack of effort that was put into the core ideas of this production. Imagine making movie about football and having a fifth down or a movie about World War II set in 1950, or maybe a Formula One racing movie where the cars have late model American bodies. When the core idea of a movie is whacked, you usually can't make a valid movie out of it. A cheesy movie, yes, but not one that captures your attention. It bothers me even more that a TV network that proclaims itself to be dedicated to Science Fiction would have so little involvement with science. If you can't have shows that educate the viewer (again I cite Isaac Asimov), then at least run the ideas past a scientist or two.

Oddly enough there is one instance when I would recommend this movie. If you need to compile of list of things not to do when making a science fiction film.

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