Raptor

2 Ratings: 0.5

A movie directed by Jim Wynorski

An unknown wild animal is on the loose in a small town and seems to be responsible for the gruesome and mysterious deaths that have been occurring. This causes the local sheriff and an animal control officer to begin their hunt for the animal responsible … see full wiki

Tags: Movies, Action Movies, Action, Adventure, Adventure Movies

Cast: Tim Abell

Director: Jim Wynorski

Release Date: 2001

MPAA Rating: R

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Raptor - Corbin, thanks for the laugh

Nov 27, 2001

by SusiDee34
posted in Movie Hype

Rating:

-3

Pros: you are NOT required by law to watch this movie

Cons: used a free rental ticket from Blockbuster

The Bottom Line: BOO ..... HISS .....

The Oracle says: Melissa Brasselle has a Bacon number of 2.
Melissa Brasselle was in Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure (1995) with Michael Paul Chan
Michael Paul Chan was in Quicksilver (1986) with Kevin Bacon ***

Actually, it is unfair to dump all the blame on Corbin Bernsen for this blatant turkey, but I can and I will. Ever since Kevin Bacon jumped on the bandwagon with Tremors, Hollywood has gone out of its' way to try to build the perfect dinosaur movie.

We can discount something like Jurrassic Park (part 1 only, after that it got lame), because those people had actual money to work with, an actual script, and a lot of people backing them. All we have to offer in Raptor is Eric Roberts, Corbin Bernsen and Roger Corman. With Corman, you know what you are going to get. Blood, guts, sleazy babes and a cheap movie. He is more than happy to follow through in this production.

On with the show
In a sleepy little town - a desert town - locale unknown, we find - ta da! Genetic engineering! Our friend Corbin is the mad scientist in this flick, going by the name of Dr. Hyde (I kid you not), who had previously been involved in government experiments (imagine) dealing with a little gene splicing and bio-technical engineering. The government realized, when a few things went a bit wrong, that Dr. Hyde was truly insane and drops his contract.

Now, anytime you are dealing with mad scientists the worst thing you can do it stop their funding and throw them off the reservation. This makes them nothing but more insane and more determined to complete their goal. In this case, we have some DNA altering and splicing to come up with the new and improved and even more delectable T-Rex. Actually this is worse than a Rex because a Raptor is smaller but a whole lot more deadly and faster on the hoof.

Before the credits even begin, we have our first ..... um ..... sighting and disemboweling. Actually, three of them, but who's counting? We know this because, well, obviously we see the act in progress and also because everything is a shade of green. This is to let us know the creature is near. As if the howling, ripping, rendering, and blood wouldn't get our attention, we get to view it all in a sickly shade of lime green.

Ah, Hell, why bother?
Have you seen any of the following: Carnosaur (1 & 2), Python, Reptilian, Night of the Living Dead, Anaconda, Mosquitoes, Bats! - you know, any movie where they have either brought the dead back to eat the living, grown large animals from the DNA of dead animals, have lost control of life as we know it. Any of those kind of things. If so, you have seen Raptor. The only difference is you don't have Clint Howard but are instead stuck with Corbin Bernsen.

Bernsen is unbelievably bad in this movie but he is snappy in his designer clothing. A loose fit jacket and pants, shirt and beret. All matching, all the time. His character in no way resembles the sleazy lawyer he played on LA Law, no wait a minute, he's still sleazy!

Eric Roberts - where did he go wrong? Didn't he make a good movie once or am I mistaken? Can't Julia give the boy a hand? He tries real hard to be a sincere backwoods sheriff but is so bad you actually feel sorry for him. In addition, he is joined by his exgirlfriend/animal control expert, Melissa Brasselle, who was also in Corman's Wasp Woman, another really bad flick. Not only is she a bad actress trying to pull off a Carly Simon look with no success but I don't think she has been introduced to a comb since she became an adult. She does wear some interesting clothes, though, what there is of them. Her acting ability? Zero.

The sheriff also has a trampy little daughter, who also meets up with the Raptor in a truly remarkable scene. Barely a store bought nipple is damaged when she is attacked but she does give us one of the alluring sexual scenes that run rampant in most monster movies and especially in Corman flicks. Her acting is even worse than Brasselle's and apparently she goes to the same hairdresser and clothing supplier.

Unfortunately Corman seemed to proudly steal stock footage from the Carnosaur movies as the creature attacks. I've seen those movies and I recognized most of the footage and certainly the creature itself. In fact, that chicken and feathers scene was very familiar. I'm not sure how he can get away with this without permission from the producers of that movie ....... oh, wait ...... HE was the producer of that movie. Did he really think we would forget and that he could use his shelf footage forever? Come on Roger, give us a break.

It was practically an embarrassment to watch the government ops' corp go into effect, trying to take over the stronghold where the eggs and the mother dino lived. For professionals they were sorely negligent and under trained. In fact, Roberts managed to do more damage (other than his acting) than both teams of special ops agents that dropped into the dino factory.

One good thing
The cinematography was clean and crisp. It flowed smoothly, even with the jumpy creatures, and the film was not grainy or shadowy.

Actually, the one thing I can say is, thanks for the much needed laugh. My sides hurt so much by the time this turkey was basted and served I had to get out the heating pad. Don't look for any Academy Award nominations for this bad boy.

Thanks,
Susi :(

*** Compliments of: Department of Computer Science
School of Engineering, University of Virginia

Recommended:
No

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