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An army captain (Ross Hagen) and two of his officers (Steve Barkett,
Bob Sheridan) are to take three deserters (Richard Gabai, Peter Spellos,
Tom Shell) back to the USA when their helicopter crashes on an uncharted
island. There, the captain's men are soon killed by dinosaurs, while he
and the deserters meet an apparently immortal amazon tribe - who do have a
problem though: A big dinosaur threatening to destroy their village if a
virgin isn't sacrificed every solstice - and somehow our heroes seem to
fit the descriptions of the "chosen ones", the Gods who have
come to kill the big dinosaur ... The captain worries aplenty while the
deserters get quite friendly with three native girls (Antonia Dorian,
Griffin Drew, Michelle Bauer) and see to it that they don't end up as
virgin sacrifices next (or ever, with the emphasis on "virgin").
The amazon queen (Toni Naples) is against all of this, but seeing her
tribe siding with the strangers, she cuts a deal with the captain to
provide him with some weapons if he takes the deserters with him once the
big dinosaur is finished. Against all odds, our heroes succeed - and when
they have, even the queen changes her mindb of getting rid of the
strangers, also because she has developed some feelings for the captain
... To fully appreciate this film, one has to understand first:
Filmmakers Jim Wynorski and Fred Olen Ray did not join forces on this one
to make the next Citizen Kane, rather to give their (largely male)
audience circa 80 minutes of mindless entertainment. And what hardly ever
fails to entertain the common male? Dinosaurs, boobs, and a bit of
puerile humour, all garnered with a bit of action/violence. Dinosaur
Island delivers all of this aplenty, and especially the dinosaur
effects (a mixture of stop motion and life size [!] models) are rather
well-done in a retro-kind of way. Now again, all of this will not give you
the feeling of having read Shakespeare, but if you can turn your brain off
for an hour and a bit (probably with the help of a beer or two), and in
the company of a few like-minded mates, you will probably find some
qualities in this movie ...
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