Theodore Rex

Theodore Rex (1995)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: Jonathan R. Beutel

Starring: Whoopi Goldberg, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Juliet Landau, Bud Cort, Richard Roundtree

From: New Line Cinema

Yes, this is another legendary turkey from the past that I actually saw as a kid. At least with the Garbage Pail Kids Movie I was able to remember parts of it; this one I saw later but I barely remembered a damn thing about it. Again, a podcast I heard in the past ripped this apart as they all hated this as much as humanly possible. I was able to find a copy so I decided to give it a go.

The plot: Basically, it's a murder mystery set in an alternate universe where some dinosaurs survived and they are bipedal humanoid-like creatures. The opening crawl tells you right away what the movie is about, sharing information that the characters don't find out until much later. That is one of many problems with this film. It's not even that Whoopi tried to get out of making this movie and they sued, so they settled and she got an extra two million dollars. It's that this is a poorly made, scripted, acted, and put-together movie. No wonder it went direct to video despite having cost what is in 2013 money around 50 million dollars.

This seems too adult for the audience but anyone who is a decent age couldn't possibly care for it. It's definitely not like Roger Rabbit, where it's fine for both kids and adults and there's Jessica Rabbit and all but it's not too bad for children. This though, is not fit for anyone. The little kids won't get it or just will be put off, while everyone else will just be offended by how bad it is.

As you can imagine, Whoopi does not deliver a great performance given the circumstances. The rest of the cast-filled with familiar faces and people who deserve a far better fate than this. Oh what sights there is, from Whoopi (whose character, by the way, is a cyborg!) being put into a tight black bodysuit, possibly as punishment by the producers, a female dinosaur basically doing a Mae West impression, exploding butterflies, and the titular Teddy Rex constantly knocking things over with his tail. To steal a line from that podcast, this son of a bitch dinosaur is like a cross between Michael Cera and Kevin James! He's constantly a blubbering idiot, constantly making all sorts of noises when he isn't saying the most inane and aggravating dialogue. He's a royal asstagonist, for sure. Then again you don't like Whoopi's character either; they are just unpleasant humans... or rather a human and a dude in a costume.

The story... all over the place and completely nonsensical. It's a story about how Mueller-Stahl wants to blow up the world to start anew or some poppycock, but there's also the “humor” with the dinosaur's tail and Teddy farts a few times, there's him drooling all over the faux Mae West dinosaur... like I said it's all over the place and plus, the story seems downright broken at times as too many things just don't make sense in general or from scene to scene. It's just poorly made and put-together, as I said earlier on. I am now glad I had wiped pretty much all of it from my memory banks; after this viewing, I hope I don't have to watch it ever again!

Oh, and lol to the director apparently quitting the film industry after this due to the way the studio treated the film. Talk about delusional. Unlike The Garbage Pail Kids Movie-which I got quite a bit of entertainment from laughing at it and its 80's-ness-this is just painful bad; not even the fact that one of the henchmen looks a lot like Tommy Wiseau makes this worth seeing. You either should stick with something like a podcast review or The Nostalgia Critic's video review. If you are brave enough, you can try to track it down, but it's only for those of the strongest will, as this IS agonizingly horrible, no exaggeration.

I'll be back Sunday night with something that should be better than this pile of feces.