Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.

Here’s another attempt to cash in on the dinosaur craze, and as far as dinosaur movies go, Raptor is about as terrifying as an episode of Barney (though Barney can be pretty darn scary to a sane adult). The fact that this stars the male Roberts sibling instead of little sis ought to be your first clue that this isn’t the most top of the line film in recent motion picture history. As my husband so eloquently stated while we were watching this, "Wow, it had a $12.00 budget, and $9.00 of that went for Roberts."

Roberts is Sheriff Jim Tanner, who is investigating some apparent wild animal maulings with the help of the lovely (and very busty) Barbara. Barbara is the "animal control officer" (big term for Dog Catcher). Since when does the Dog Catcher investigate grizzly bear attacks? Anyway, the Sheriff’s daughter is rendered catatonic when she witnesses a "big lizard thing" attack and kill her much older boyfriend after a little tryst in the back of his pickup. This leads the Sheriff and the Dog Catcher to immediately assume a wild dinosaur is running amuck in the neighboring countryside. After wracking their brains (you can practically see the smoke coming out of their ears from all this thinking), they decide that the local chicken farm is producing dinosaurs. Why? Because the chicken farm is owned by a corporation with a funny name. I kid you not. This chicken farm is run by an insane scientist who wants to breed a strain of big, mean, smart dinosaurs who can fight wars and do construction work (I swear to God, that was an actual line in the movie). He's played by Corbin Bernsen, quite a step down for him, I'd say.

So they, and the army, storm the building, kill a bunch of dinosaurs and blow the place up. Here are some interesting things I noticed during the viewing (the very interminable viewing) of this fine film. The movie, called Raptor (which is generally considered the short form of the word Velociraptor) has absolutely NO velociraptors. They are all T-Rexes. They are all T-Rexes that apparently change size frequently, being about 5 feet tall when alone, and 30 feet tall when in the presence of humans. I also discovered that T-Rexes look just like those rubber Godzilla toys that were so popular a few years ago. However, you’ll be pleased to know that despite not being able to open their jaws more than a few inches, they can easily (and quite messily) disembowel numerous humans (that’s where the other $3.00 in the budget went).

Now, if you should ever have the occasion to have to fight a T-Rex to the death, make sure you have a Bob Cat handy. That’s one of those little personal sized back hoe things that you use to grade your driveway or dig up a pipe. When faced with a T-Rex, a Bob Cat will suddenly triple in size and grow big forks in the front, but only when in direct contact with the dinosaur. If you are backing up, or turning, it will revert to a normal Bob Cat.

Finally (as if that weren’t enough), when they needed to film the scenes that are set deep in the bowels of the chicken farm/dna research/dinosaur cloning lab, the budget apparently didn’t extend far enough to film in an actual industrial basement. They had to use a ship. How do I know this? Because the geniuses in charge of sets forgot to remove the life preservers with the name of the ship off of the walls. Keep an eye out for the distinctive round, white flotation devices that pop of numerous times during the climactic fight scenes at the end. They’re not hard to miss

Roberts acting skills just aren't up to par with Julia's, but he did a decent job in Raptor. Bernson generally chews more scenery than the dinosaurs, and seems to be trying way to hard to be suitably sneaky and threatening. Melissa Brasselle plays the dog catcher, and she plays it with all the enthusiasm of a porn queen. Brasselle's lips never close completely, and she spends the entire movie with lips sexily parted, showing even white teeth, and periodically licking aforementioned lips. She also finds an opportunity to strip down to her Victoria's Secret lingerie and investigate strange dinosaur sounding noises in her house. I never did figure out just how and/or why her dog managed to sound just like an angry dinosaur.

This one is worth watching just to catch all the mistakes. If you’re looking for a good laugh, and a lesson in how not to make a movie, give this one a try. Just don’t expect anything close to Jurassic Park.


Recommended: No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older
Special Effects: Well at least you can't see the strings