** - This is probably the best film that the crew over at cheapo mockbuster rip-off factory ‘The Asylum’ has made. Seeing as I gave it a whopping two stars, that’s not really saying much about the wretched film distribution company. Another in a long line of their low-budget action sci-fi adventure tales with heavy involvement from washed-up B-list actors, this 2009 adaptation of a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs beats out the company’s prior efforts due to its lush tropical scenery and decent camerawork. But like the other movies that the group has been responsible for, the acting, special effects, story and dialogue are all incredibly inept. Timothy Bottoms, C. Thomas Howell and a German guy who looks like a cross between John Malkovich and John C. Reilly lead a ragtag group of people around in an attempt to extricate themselves from the dangers of the mysterious dinosaur-infested island they have all somehow wound up on. The idea here is that the island has some weird time deal going on in which it manages to ensnare people and creatures from all different eras. And there are exactly three eras represented here: the modern day, the WWII era and the Cretaceous period, with oddly nothing in between those time frames. That makes very little sense, and seeing as the original novel was written in 1918, I get the feeling that this silliness was an add-on from the filmmakers. Add to that the fact that the cartoon-like dinosaurs look so laughably out of place next to the live actors and scenery and you get yourself a pretty crummy movie overall. Plus, I got pretty sick of Howell constantly rubbing his head and futzing around with the brim of his dingy sports visor.
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