"100 Million B. C." is from Asylum films; a company who in recent years have specialised in making and releasing films deliberately titled and written to cash in on the hype surrounding major label releases. Generally, however, the films they make are far worse than the originals and rarely ... Read review
Production Year: 2003 - Action/Adventure - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring:Tom Welling, Kristin Kreuk, Michael Rosenbaum, Sam Jones III, Allison Mack, Eric Johnson, Annette O'Toole, John Glover, John Schneider
Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Production Year: 1977 - Action/Adventure - Director: Clint Eastwood - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney
Advantages: It's a pretty decent idea Disadvantages: That's the only decent thing about it
...and Marines to the year 100 Million B. C. as part of an experiment in time travel. Unfortunately, things go badly wrong and the ones that survive the trip are trapped with little hope of return. Despite the team finding a clever way of telling him they don't blame him for this, Doctor Reno still tortures himself, especially as one of the team who has been trapped was his brother, Erik. This is only natural, I suppose; I don't know what their family ... ...lead a team back to 100 Million B. C. to rescue his brother and whoever of his colleagues has survived. As is common in films of this type, they run into a lot of strange animals and situations that they didn't expect or plan for and they also forget that the wormhole they've come through could let the residents of 100 Million B. C. back in the other direction. Equally predictably, it's the biggest and fiercest of them all that makes it through, ... more
"100 Million B. C." is from Asylum films; a company who in recent years have specialised in making and releasing films deliberately titled and written to cash in on the hype surrounding major label releases. Generally, however, the films they make are far worse than the originals and rarely worth watching. Given that "100 Million B. C." is based on "10,000 B. C.", which wasn't really all that good a film to start with, you can maybe guess that this one isn't going to be worth watching, either.
Perhaps what makes it more of a disappointment is that it's actually not a bad idea to start with. Back in the 1940s, Doctor Frank Reno sends a group of scientists and Marines to the year 100 Million B. C. as part of an experiment in time travel. Unfortunately, things go badly wrong and the ones that survive the trip are trapped with little hope of return. Despite the team finding a clever way of telling him they don't blame him for this, Doctor Reno still tortures himself, especially as one of the team who has been trapped was his brother, Erik. This is only natural, I suppose; I don't know what their family are like, but I certainly wouldn't want to explain something like that to my mother!
Sixty years later, however, there is some hope. Technology has moved on far enough to give Doctor Reno the opportunity to lead a team back to 100 Million B. C. to rescue his brother and whoever of his colleagues has survived. As is common in films of this type, they run into a lot of strange animals and situations that they didn't expect or plan for and they also forget that the wormhole they've come through could let the residents of 100 Million B. C. back in the other direction. Equally predictably, it's the biggest and fiercest of them all that makes it through, something akin to a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Even knowing how bad the film is, the thought of this story still fills me with excitement. It's a great basic idea, filled with excitement and endless possibilities, if it's done right. Admittedly, it's not the most original of ideas, as pretty much every single element has been done before; people dropping into pre-historic periods was a staple of 1950s film making, travelling to strange places through wormholes is very much like "Stargate" and large dinosaurs causing havoc reminds me of "Jurassic Park" or "Godzilla". But that doesn't mean the combination was destined to failure if everything was up to scratch. Sadly, it wasn't in any way.
Whilst the basic idea was sound, the plot has enough holes that suspension of belief wasn't enough; you need to take disbelief and rip it up and throw it away completely. This is especially so when the rescue team are preparing to go back to pre-historic times the second time around. Suddenly, they are concerned by things that hadn't bothered them the first time around; things like creating a paradox despite the people who were sent back having written things in English. Also, they seem to be concerned about air quality affecting them, but the fact that the people they are going to rescue have been breathing that same air doesn't seem to have occurred to them; it's either harmless, or it's killed them, but no-one thinks of this.
The script is fairly predictable most of the time as well. The second half of the film is the same as every other "dinosaur in a city" film you can think of. Instead of trying to destroy it, they try to trap it, involving lots of running away and people being eaten. Again, in true predictable fashion, the next person to be eaten is usually the last one to have said something of the lines of "I can't see it", only to discover that it was behind him all along. The suspense was never killing me, but the sheer boredom of it nearly did, as it did get rather repetitive towards the end.
Watching the film, it didn't seem as if I was the only one to have felt this way about it. The entire cast seem to have realised that this film was doomed from the start and put in a level of effort to match. Admittedly, most of the Marines were largely unknown and probably grateful to get a role, but the performances here don't suggest that an acting career is in the making for any of them. Most of them acted like they had received very little in the way of direction and weren't entirely sure what they should be doing. However, they can maybe be forgiven as the performances by the lead actors weren't really a great deal better. In the case of Greg Evigan as Ellis Dorn, it wasn't entirely his fault as he wasn't given a huge amount to do, but I would have expected more from Michael Gross and Christopher Atkins as the Reno brothers, but they didn't seem to want to waste their time with emotions.
As bad as the humans were, they were completely outshone by the special effects which were so bad, they certainly came across as being "special". The T-Rex was obviously computer generated, but didn't seem to have a great deal of depth to it, as if they ran out of budget before they'd put in the third dimension. The way it kept appearing from nowhere suggested that they were trying to minimise the on screen time, although whether this was to keep the budget down or because they realised it looked awful, I don't know. Some of the other dinosaur type creatures looked a bit rubbery, in a way that hasn't been so obvious in a film since "Snakes on a Plane", or some of the old "Doctor Who" monsters.
It ended up making the film look like one of those 1950s or 1960s dinosaur films, which would have been acceptable if they were trying to spoof one of those, but this didn't seem to be the case. It makes it even worse when you think that "Jurassic Park" had much better effects, despite now being fifteen years old, although I will concede that a major difference in budget could have been more responsible for this, despite the progression of computer generated effects in the decade and a half since then. Watch out for one particularly bad moment where a car drives past the actors backwards in a scene that must have used blue screen technology, but did so incredibly badly. It would have been funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
Not content with being a disappointment to the eye, the film is also an assault on the ears. It's perhaps just as well that films don't come in scratch and sniff, as I'm sure that would have been a let down as well. But here, the sound effects are not up to scratch, with the dinosaurs not sounding terribly scary and with their sounds not always matching up to their movements. The gun noises were also badly dubbed, with some sounding like they were just firing compressed air; almost as if they'd been missed and not been dubbed over in the mix later on. Even the gun sounds that do seem to have been dubbed don't always sound the same, despite them supposedly being the same weapons. The actual music was done in much the same way as the computer effects; the general idea was there, but the execution was obviously done on the cheap and the film makers clearly got what they paid for.
It seems kind of churlish to kick a film while it's down, but it could be argued that even the rating the film was given is wrong. Whilst there are some characters being killed by dinosaurs in not terribly pleasant ways, this doesn't seem to being enough to account for the 18 rating. Given what some films get away with, I suspect a 15 rating would suffice, although the one advantage to the 18 rating is that it reduces the number of people who have the option to see this most awful of films.
If there is one good thing to be said about the film, it's the running time. At around 85 minutes long, I can only be thankful that there isn't more of it. Given the lack of quality in other areas, I suspect that the lack of a decent budget was the reason the film was deliberately kept short, but this is the only area where the lack of money seems to have had a positive outcome.
This isn't a film that seems to be easy to come across offline, as none of the major DVD sellers in my area seem to stock it. Still, if it was easy to find, people might be tempted by it, so maybe this can be seen as a positive thing. The Amazon price of £15.99 nearly made me choke on my coffee, as that seems to be to be more than the budget for the film itself as opposed to a reasonable purchase price. Even the cheapest prices I could find, for £5.99 on Play Trade and £6.99 on the Amazon Marketplace, would be more than the film is worth and I suspect the same could be said for even rental costs. This is a film to be avoided wherever possible, even if it gets shown on TV for nothing, as it's not a film that's so bad it's good, it's so bad it's simply awful.
Advantages: the ilm settings are good Disadvantages: the acting and directing and the number of mistakes in the film
one hundred million year's b.c dvd
==the plot==
A senior member of the united states navy, from a failed philadelphia experiment leads a team of navy seal soldiers to rescue the team he sent during the Nineteen Forties. eighteen out of twenty ene soldiers go through a time portal and by mistake a dinasour is sent through the time portal. The dinosaur makes it to los angeles. during the nineteen forties dr reno, sent a team through a time warp, ... ...years ago. Archeological evidence and proof of the mission surfaced. The team is briefed regarding the philadelphia project led by Dr Reno's. It is his time warp technology which enables the team to go back in time. once the time travel is complete, the story largely focuses on trying to effectively kill and escape from dinosaurs as they have been entered into the time warp system by accident. once the team enter the jungle upon discovery of a dinosaur ...
costas1234 29.05.2008 (31.05.2009)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of 100 Million Years BC (DVD)
Advantages: None Disadvantages: Most of the film, acting, story
...widescreen presentation
2.1 surround sound
100 million years back in time
Dino Evolution
Blooper reel
Deleted scenes
I have not wasted any more time in watching these as the film was such a let down.
The film has a certificate of 15 which is probably about right as there are some scenes of men being killed and eaten by very unrealistic dinosaurs.
Thankfully we only paid £2.97 for our copy of this film which I am pleased about as if I would ...
sewbizzie 06.10.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of 100 Million Years BC (DVD)
Advantages: None Disadvantages: Bad acting, bad and predictable story line, awful special effects
...in time to the year 100 million bc, something predictably goes wrong and they are trapped there with no hope of return. They come up witha way to comunicate into the future, and later Dr. Reno leads a mission to try and rescue the team, unfortunately this also goes wrong and they manage to bring a large man eating dinosaur back to 1940 with them which is then let loose on LA.
== The Film ==
This is one of the worst films I have seen for a while, ... ...however the way it has been portrayed by the actors and the script it has been ruined, it seems rushed and thrown together. The acting isn't brilliant but I suppose they have done the best they could with a bad script amongst other things, although it seems as though they have all read the script and thought 'god this is awful' and acted that way too.
The special effects are also very poor, in fact there is nothing particularly special about them, ...
johnny040676 01.06.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of 100 Million Years BC (DVD)
...the best scientists back to 100 million years BC. This is what gives the film its title. Just as you expected something goes wrong and not all the crew make it back in time. So just what went wrong? They managed to get to 100 million years BC but how do they intend to get back. The group come up with ideas that using cave paintings they will be able to communicate with their scientists back home. If only it was that easy eh. In the end Dr Renno decides ... ...one major problem here..... They accidentally manage to bring a huge man eating dinosaur back to 1940 with them.... The huge man eating dinosaur is then let loose on a 1940 Los Angeles.
If you last the whole film you will be bored for a ridiculous 85mins ===My Thoughts on this movie===
I am no huge film critic nor am I a huge film fan, but anything with dinosaurs in it I seem to love for some reason. The likes of Jurassic park all those years ago ...
marcellep2 28.05.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of 100 Million Years BC (DVD)
Advantages: None Disadvantages: Everything about this film
100 Million Years B.C.
Released: 5th May 2008
Directed By: Griff Furst
Runtime: 85 Minutes
Certificate: 18
==Cast:==
Michael Gross - Dr. Frank Reno
Christopher Atkins - Erik Reno
Greg Evigan - LCDR Ellis Dorn
Stephen Blackehart - Lt. Robert Peet
Geoff Meed - CPO Lopes
Wendy Carter - Betty
Marie Westbrook - Ruth
Dean Kreyling - Chief 'Bud' Stark
Phil Burke - Stubbs
Nick McCallum - Burke
Aaron Stigger - Manriquez
Daniel Ponsky - Jones
... ...to scientists back in time 100 million years unfortunately though some did not make it and a few were found moulded into the various bulkheads of the ship that they were on whilst attempting the time travelling journey however the ship turned up some 300 miles away from its original position so everyone presumed that they had discovered teleportation.
Something went wrong with the mission though and left the team stranded in the dawn of time with ...
Gangsta-ash 11.04.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of 100 Million Years BC (DVD)
A team of time-travellers journey into the past and unwittingly bring back a bloodthirsty dinosaur to modern-day Los Angeles.
Release details
DVD Region
DVD
Studio(s)
Lighthouse DVD Distribution; Pinnacle Vision
Languages
Main Language
English
Technical information
Special Features
100 Million Years Back In Time, Blooper reel, Dino - Evolution
Aspect Ratio
Wide Screen
Sound
5.1 Surround
DVD Description
A team of time-travellers journey into the past and unwittingly bring back a bloodthirsty dinosaur to modern-day Los Angeles. As this prehistoric menace roams the city streets, the feeding frenzy begins in this low-budget sci-fi yarn.
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