Legend has it that real-life dinosaurs still roam the dark depths of the African Congo and this low-budget British dino drama explores that possibility. Shot in fashionably found-footage, fake documentary style (think Jurassic Park meets Blair Witch), the film has a team of explorers, including the inevitable video-toting teen, going in search of living fossils, and finding a whole lost world of them. But inter-team rivalries break out, and rapidly prove as great a threat to the expedition’s survival as the dinos themelves.
The Dinosaur Project is testimony to what can be done on a budget these days with computer access, decent software effects programmes, lots of knowhow and oodles of imagination. The dinos are decent. And, if the wrapround story is rather repetitive and confusing, the ‘monster’ moments sort of compensate. And it’s worth pointing out that those monster moments are scary rather than bloody. There are also some cute dino moments to offset the more bite-y stuff. It may, though, at times, prove a touch too much for younger or more sensitive kids.
Is The Dinosaur Project suitable for kids? Here are our parents’ notes...
Helicopter crash.
Several dino attacks, though they’re not so much bloody as make-you-jump.
Scenes, too, where humans are in mortal peril from other humans.
If you like this, why not try: Jurassic Park, Journey To The Center Of The Earth 1959, The Land That Time Forgot, Journey To The Center Of The Earth 2008, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island,