ADVENTURES IN DINOSAUR CITY

(1991 / 1992)


Notes: Smart Egg Pictures. 88 loud minutes.
Timmy: Omri Katz
Mick: Shawn Hoffman
Jamie: Tiffanie Poston
Link: Pete Koch
Missy: Megan Hughes
Dana: Mimi Maynard
Gil: Steven Anderson

Produced: Luigi Cingolani
Directed: Brett Thompson
Screenplay: Wili Baronet and Lisa Morton.


Summary: Jamie's romantic dinosaur story is judged lame by Timmy; Mick is oblivious. Timmy's parents, the Shepherds, experiment with time and space on a tv screen while the three kids watch a cartoon show called Dino Saurs. Timmy advises Jamie that this is what she should write like, where dinosaurs would "take a chunk out of anybody" who crossed them.

The parents prepare for a conference and plead that Timmy not "watch cartoons all day." "What's wrong with cartoons?" When they leave, Timmy convinces the other two to "watch Dino Saurs on the big tv in the lab." Mick: "Check it out! Ultrasaurus television set!" The video comes on but they are zapped into this asinine world. [The transition is lengthy; go to the kitchen for a drink here.] They meet Forey, a small wise-cracking batlike dinosaur, and hide from the "Rockies"--cavemen called Cro Magnon morons and Neanderthals alternately who instigate some kind of power-plant melt-down of Saur City against which we must race from here on out.

Through a graveyard they seek Tartown and enter a bar where, after the floor show of Raquel and her Million B.C.s singing "I Dig It When You Get Primitive, Darling," they try to shame superhero Rex and his sidekick Tops into saving Saur City. Rockies enter; fight ensues. [Go to the kitchen for a refill here.] We get a glimpse of the Darth-Vader-voiced black-robed evil leader, imaginatively named Mr. Big, using the Rockies as thralls: "Allosaurs shall rule the world once more! The reign of terror begins! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha."

Now that Rex and Tops are on the mission, at night the batch witnesses the evacuation of Saur City. Mick is depressed but Jamie tends to his ego. Rex rows Timmy to Skull Island where they see what used to be the center of the city (suspicious) and where Rex's father's monument, dedicated to his anti-allosaur combat, is defaced. This is supposed to be insti-patridepth.

Mr. Big's hidden camera sees Timmy's magical remote control pausing and rewinding attackers: "What is that power? I must have that device." Timmy is kidnapped, Jamie lures cavemen guards and knocks them out, and Mick is bitchy and sullen. We discover Rex's father in prison and he quickly explains that he was drugged into being a traitor all those years ago. Insti-reunion gives way to a rescue of Timmy who has been suspended over fire and drilled to explain the secret of his remote control. [Another drink? Why yes, I'd love one.] Rex smacks Mr. Big in the name of his father, and Timmy zaps him with the remote. Some confusing sort of elevator drama and Forey learning to fly ensues. Daddy and the tower blow up. Forey fixes something back at Saur City. Should Timmy stay or go back? Oh oh oh agony agony agony.

Back in what passes for reality, the parents are back, and the three kids smirk a lot.


Commentary: The film is atrocious, obnoxious, and unendurable, pimping to the Ninja Turtles groupies of the time and similarly encouraging the very worst in American male brats. Every smug cliché of faux emotional depth is prostituted here. Thank the holy lord above that this pile did not skyrocket to fame and popularity. Destroy all copies.


Dinofilms
Dino-Source