Jackson Slate is in deep with some small time thugs. He owes them a lot of money and he thinks that there is Mayan treasure buried deep in a blue hole off the shore of a secluded island off the coast of Belize. What Slate does not know is that he disturbs the Poseidon Rex from its slumber when he sets of explosives at the bottom of this hole.
Slate enlists the help of sexy marine biologist Sarah, local boat tour guide Henry, and a young couple on vacation to go find the gold but they end up facing off with P-Rex on the opens seas. P-Rex then goes on a murderous rampage sinking boat after boat eventually taking its all-teeth boat show to the shores of this small island.
To start, surprise-surprise, Poseidon Rex is not a well made film. There are too many goofs in the filmmaking. One minute the two Jamaicans sent to track down Slate on are their boat in the middle of the Ocean. When P-Rex shows up and rocks the boat they fall down and you can see about a clear foot of dock on the port side.
In another shot you can see the film crew reflected in one of their sunglasses set up under a veranda on the dock. When Slate and Sarah are opening up the P-Rex egg in her lab you can see the boom mike dip into the picture. How about the military calling their own F16 Falcons and F18 Eagles Raptors? All sorts of shenanigans abound in this one. Shenanigans you have come to expect from a no budget creature feature.
Or how about ridiculousness in the script like when our heroes find a boat that P-Rex has recently headbutted and Sarah says, "Just like before. Another wrecked boat with no sign of survivors. Not even any bodies". Hold up Sarah. How do you even know what happened before? Are you in cahoots with P-Rex? Or how about when they come ashore towards the end of the film to a deserted town and there is no one to be seen? Then P-Rex makes landfall and suddenly there is a crowd running away from it. "We were not safe indoors! Run out in the open!!!". Or what exactly is the military watching the events in the climax unfold on? We see the monitors they are looking at. There is no play by play coverage going on here. What? How? Why?
About the only thing that is good in this entire film. Apart from watching Anne McDaniels run. Wink. Is that the dinosaur effects are surprisingly good. I think this is what the entire budget got sucked into. That leaves this small production with enough money to only afford the rights to one song, 'Como Te Llama', which plays over and over and over again. "Welcome to Island FM where we play one song, and one song only. Coming in at number ten through one, 'Como Te Llama'"! Sadly, this song is not about Llamas, at all.
What is so sad is that there is very little carnage in Poseidon Rex. For the most part P-Rex just pounds boats into splinters. There are only a few chomping moments and that simply is not enough in my books. If you feature a creature that was one of the most feared predators of all the dinosaurs then that creature must create mass amounts of carnage. The most blood and carnage is created by the baby P-Rex that Slate and Sarah unhatch in her lab. That little bastard does some serious damage to Tariq and his goons and he is maybe a foot tall.
Director, Mark L. Lester has come a long way from the glory days of Commando, Firestarter and Class of 1984. He may carry some cult clout with those gems from the 80s and early 90s but 30 years later and doing things on the cheap does not make for a memorable experience.
Like almost nearly every other creature feature in that last few years Poseidon Rex is a prime example of no-budget filmmaking that provides few thrills in moderate action set pieces. Yet somehow this managed to get a theatrical release. If you absolutely have to see Poseidon Rex then a state of inebriation is recommended. Then again we should recommend that you do in the comfort of your own home via iTunes. Just because the movie is dumb does not give you permission to be so yourself.
Poseidon Rex will be released in cinemas and on iTunes on April 18th. Later it will be released DVD and digital download on May 13th.