Age of the Lost and Forgotten

Thursday night on SyFy I had of misfortune of watching this movie. Now I am fully aware that SyFy has cultivated a reputation for showcasing a multitude of low-budget, TV-movies or Direct-to-Video movies on its weekly programming but this is one that I find unworthy of being on either format, ever again.

Age of Dinosaurs appeared to be little more than a low-quality production filled with more holes than anything metaphoric you can imagine to compare that statement with. There were many elements that were blatantly stolen from better movies. Points of this include the alleged element regarding the dinosaurs that the two scientists were trying to figure out. What was that? A biological shut-down for the dinosaurs? That sounds familiar does it not? (Jurassic Park's genetic fail-safe contingent for the dinosaurs).

The human factor was painfully overdone with the dysfunctional parent-child relationship between the "never-around-because-I'm-doing-my-job" father and his redheaded teenage daughter, whose character and attitude came across as irritably stupid and argumentative. This is a pattern all too familiar in many of SyFy's horror/creature movies and it is a story-horse that has been ridden into the ground. Time to get off it. Because of the daughter's stupidity throughout the course of the film, people around her were put into needless danger and more often were killed because of her. Certainly this is no good quality in a film's leading female. I should think women would be objecting more to portrayals like that. It is a characterization that has been written in too many films in recent years.


Now comes the issue the dinosaurs. While the movie clearly remembered the heart of its plot and title, the vast swarm of dinosaurs overtaking an entire city is ridiculous. It is because by the end of the film there was no explanation as to how the dinosaurs were eliminated or contained if possible. That made for a cheap and very unfinished ending.

And the conduct of the dinosaurs was as unreal as unreal can be. A T-Rex climbing the side of a building?? A spinosaurus was on top of another building, a skyscraper more likely, before taking a death-plunge? And the horned dinosaurs acting like raptors, stealing scenes straight out of JP (girl trapped in a see-through cabinet, girl trapped behind a fence gate) and a pteranadon paying homage to JP III and One Million Years B.C. by flying off with the redhead in claw.

This movie clearly struggled throughout the course of its play. Lack of reasonable carnage and an overkill of dinosaur numbers made the near hour and a half that I watched of this, torturous. Of all the bad movies I've watched on SyFy and trust me, I've watched many, this is by far the worst of them. I can say this makes movies such as Dinocroc vs Supergator, Supergator, hell, even Megashark vs Crocosaurus semi-decent when it comes to endings, speed of the movie (because AOD here just dragged and dragged, focusing on a Dad and Daughter duo who were both becoming increasingly dumb) and endings.

This is one movie that SyFy can add to a vault collection titled "Age of the Lost and Forgotten" and never open the door again unless to toss in another movie of that quality. Let this be the last time this is played, SyFy.