You can never have too many dinosaur movies. At least, that is what I like to believe. Whether it be my favorite giant radioactive dinosaur (Godzilla), or your mega blockbuster movies like Jurassic Park, if a dinosaur movie is on TV, I will sit down and watch it. Take this movie for instance. I first saw Carnosaur 2 years ago on HBO or Showtime (honestly can’t remember which on but it was one of the premium channels). I would later catch it several times on Sci-Fi/Syfy channel until I picked up the series on DVD.
The plot: At the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Depository, a worker is checking out the lower levels for the cause of some power fluctuations when he is attacked and killed by an unknown creature. A second worker, Joe Walker, heads down and finds several power cables have been chewed up, then finds his nephew Jesse Turner and his friend Davey Lewis, who had broken into a storage room and were grabbing some dynamite. Joe tells Davey to head back to the surface, saying he will call his father later, then takes Jesse back to the surface with him. When they get there, Joe talks with one of the computer technicians, who says a repair team will be out to repair the lines in a couple of hours. Jesse heads over to one of the workmen, who shows him how to operate one of the forklifts, warning him not to throw the switch that activates bay doors, as it would be a 150 foot drop straight down. Joe takes Jesse with him to the mess hall and chastises him for messing with the cables and Jesse asks what cables. Suddenly, they hear the cook scream outside and Joe gets up to investigate when the cook is thrown through the window. Jesse runs and hides as a creature makes it’s way into the mess hall and proceeds to kill everyone there. The next morning, Jack Reed, Monk Brody, Sarah Rawlins, and Ed Moses and called in by their boss, Ben Kahane, and told that they will be heading to Yucca Mountain and that Major Tom McQuade. McQuade tells them that Yucca Mountain is a uranium mine that is having electrical issues and they are the closest team available to be able to fix it, but is evasive on some of the details about the place. They head into a helicopter, piloted by Joanne Galloway, and fly to Yucca Mountain only to find the place deserted and their radio communications is broken up due to interference, meaning they can’t call out for help. When they can’t reach anyone inside the facility, McQuade tells Reed, Monk, and Sarah to search the area while he heads inside the control center with Moses, Ben, and Galloway. Reed and the others find the trashed mess hall, with blood splattered everywhere, and they go to leave when they spot Jesse, who is frozen in shock. They take him to the infirmary, where Ben, McQuade, and Galloway meet them, and Ben says they should get the kid and leave but McQuade tells them to stay there and finish the job, threatening Galloway if she flies them out of there. While Galloway watches over Jesse, McQuade has the others head back to the control room, where Moses is able to get the computers running. They start looking for the problem areas but when Moses and Monk try to get access to the 2 lowest areas, McQuade tells them to ignore them, but he notices that the radiation levels in those areas are registering unsafe. Jesse starts to come around and Galloway takes him into the control room, where Moses is guiding the others to where the problem sections are. When they get down to level C, they find the problem is that the wires are chewed up and Ben threatens to pull his team if McQuade doesn’t let them do their job Reed and Sarah head down to the lower levels and McQuade yells at them to get back but Ben tells him that if he wants them to fix the place, he has to let them do their jobs. Ben, Monk, and McQuade follow Reed and Sarah down to the lower level, where they find the radiation is increasing as well as a large tooth by one of the containers. Suddenly, something grabs Ben and drags him down the corridor and into a shaft to the lowest level, where he is killed, and Reed tells the others to run. In the control room, Jesse hears what happened to Ben and screams out before running off and Galloway chases after him, leaving Moses alone in the room. Moses is trying to get in touch with the others when he is confronted by a Velociraptor, which begins attacking him. Galloway returns but Moses tells her to run as the raptor knocks him into a panel, then drags him up into the ceiling, where it kills him. Jesse heads down into the tunnels and meets up with the others and tells them to follow him out of there. Galloway races back to her helicopter and gets it started, then yells at the others to hurry when she sees them exit the building. Suddenly, a raptor appears in the helicopter behind her and attacks her, causing Galloway to lose control of the helicopter and crash. With no way out of there, McQuade tells them to head back inside and Reed reluctantly agrees but once inside, he forces McQuade to tell them what is going on. McQuade tells them that 2 months ago, a research firm had somehow resurrected dinosaurs and while the army had contained the problem, they found a nest and brought the eggs to the facility for study. Reed decides to try and get the system running again and Jesse tells him to let him try to access the system, as he has been hacking into the system for the past 3 months. As he pulls up the floor plans, Jesse shows Reed a room in Section B and tells him that there is dynamite down there. Reed and Monk go to get the dynamite, despite McQuade protesting against it. When they find the dynamite, McQuade uses the computer to lock them in the room but Reed breaks the lock and continues down, and McQuade heads down to try and stop them. McQuade attacks Monk and knocks him out, then attacks Reed and the two fight. When a warning suddenly sounds saying that they have 2 hours till a meltdown, it distracts McQuade briefly, allowing a revived Monk to knock him out. Monk goes to leave when he is attacked by a raptor but Reed shoots it with a flare gun, killing it. Reed and Monk carry McQuade back to the infirmary and force him to explain what is going on and McQuade admits that the facility is not a mine, but a top secret storage disposal for nuclear material, primarily decommissioned nuclear warheads. Coming up with a way to get help to them, Jesse suggests crashing the system, as an evac team would have to show up at that point. Reed decides to use some dynamite to booby trap the shafts to keep the raptors away from them long enough to keep while Jesse crashes the system. Jesse manages to crash the system but the raptors are able to detonate the dynamite from a distance and make their way to the control room. Jesse leads everyone to the elevator, just as a raptor starts to enter the area but Reed and McQuade are able to hold it off long enough for Monk to get the elevator open and they all pile in. As the elevator starts to ascend, they hear something strike the top of the elevator, just as a raptor’s head burst through the ceiling, grabs Sarah, and drags her up onto the top of the elevator, where it kills her. AS the other stare in shock at what happened, the elevator cables snap and then end up crashing down to the lower levels. Finding a way out of the elevator, Jesse goes to lead them out of their, saying they have to head to level E and then go up from there, but they encounter more raptors and are forced to avoid the explosives as the raptors chase them. Monk gets hurt when one of the explosives go off and McQuade tells Reed to leave with Jesse while he helps Monk but he is unable to get Monk out of there and as more raptors approach, they decide to kill themselves, taking out the raptors with them. The force of the explosion causes Reed to be knocked over the edge of a pit and Jesse tries to pull him up but Reed ends up falling back to the lower levels. Jesse decides to head to the surface to get some help from the evacuation team, which had just arrived. Jesse tries to get them to go back for Reed but the evac leader says that the place is going to be too hot (radioactively speaking) for them to stay and they should leave now so Jesse goes back on his own, using the freight elevator to reach Reed. Jesse grabs Reed, who says his ribs are broken, and they head back to the elevator but as they make their way through the central area, they are confronted by a Tyrannosaurus. They manage to make it into the elevator, only to see one last raptor on the roof trying to attack them but they manage to reach the roof unharmed. The evac team goes to help them onto the helicopter but Jesse heads back to the elevator to grab the bag with the remote detonator. As he starts to head back, the Tyrannosaurus bursts out of the building, killing one of the evac workers. Jesse gets into the forklift and uses it to battle the Tyrannosaurus, eventually pushing it through the open bay doors to the floor below. Jesse makes it onto the helicopter and as they fly off, Jesse detonates the explosives, destroying the complex and insuring that none of the dinosaurs survived.
So while the original movie might have had a better plot, I liked this movie better. The acting was good, with John Savage (Reed), Cliff De Young (McQuade) and Ryan Thomas Johnson (Jesse) all doing good jobs in their roles. The story was honestly a little weak; and while they did try and tie the movie in with it’s predecessor, they did a poor job of really explaining how the dinosaurs hatched, or survived considering they were stored with the nuclear material. The special effects were ok but I will say that the dinosaurs looked a little better in this movie. That being said, some of the interactions with the humans were somewhat laughably bad, as it really made them look like they were using models, but that was a lot of the fun in watching the movie. One of those movies that is fun to watch and laugh at, or with.
Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5
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