Poseidon Rex

Sigh… 'Poseidon Rex'. Let's just get through this. I know I said the same thing about 'Dracono' and to be honest I could cut whatever I said about that movie and paste it here, but I'm not gonna do that because that's even too lazy for me.

Belize… a beautiful tropical island where they are now making an awful lot of low budget movies. What I wouldn't give to be on a Belizean film crew for a couple of weeks to make a low budget movie. I'm available, to do whatever… from janitorial to directing… if anyone of you awesome filmmakers is looking. I'll even give one of these awful movies a good review if that what it's going to take.

Anyway, actor Brian Krause is Jackson Slate, an action movie name if ever there was one. And Jackson is some kind of thief or something. Apparently Jackson made the critical mistake of stealing from the super evil Tariq (Gildon Roland) and Tariq wants his money back. Jackson tells Tariq's people of some hidden treasure deep beneath the sea, and all they need to do is go get it. Jackson plants some underwater explosives, things go boom, but unfortunately the P-Rex has been released! We're jumping ahead a little bit by calling the underwater dinosaur a P-Rex as we really should wait on Dr. Sarah (Anne McDaniels), the Marine Micro Biological Paleontologist to name it, which she will do soon enough. Right now it's just a large, angry, hungry underwater dinosaur swimming around causing a ruckus.

The good thing for Jackson is that he was knocked unconscious during the explosion, so he wasn't eaten, and was eventually found by some vacationers. This is where he meets Dr. Sarah who can't help but be attracted to the caddish criminal old enough to be her dad. Jackson tells these vacationers about the underwater gold, and everybody is on board for riches and fame. When in reality they are on board for death and sadness.

While all of this treasure hunting is going on, the P-Rex is on a rampage. In fact, the only thing saving us from completely getting wrecked by the P-Rex, according to Dr. Sarah, is the fact it can't walk on land. Dr. Sarah… most ill-informed Micro Marine Paleontologist ever. Now the P-Rex is walking on land eating people… though it should get full at some point… and it also really hates Jackson and Dr. Sarah. I mean this thing could go anywhere on the island, yet it consistently tries to hunt down Jackson and Dr. Sarah. Is a crazed sea dinosaur tracking their every move going to stop Jackson and Dr. Sarah from expressing physical, fully clothed, TV safe love for one another? No it is not.

This situation is dire. This thing has laid eggs, the army is ready to nuke it and kill Belize, or something like that, unless Jackson and Dr. Sarah and Dr. Sarah's bazooka can put an end to this madness. Sigh.

First, let's get a shout out to the lovely Anne McDaniels, whom we loved in the 'Attack of the 50ft. Cheerleader'… genius… and her organization Bowling for Boobies While you will be treated on the cover page with an image of Ms. McDaniels on all fours and her admittedly ample boobies falling out of her snug shirt, it's not about Anne's boobies, it's about raising funds for Breast Cancer. That's Righteous, so donate now. I figure this free plug is the least I can do since I won't be saying a lot great things about Anne's movie 'Poseidon Rex'.

We held out some hope for 'Poseidon Rex' if for no other reason it was directed by veteran Mark L. Lester who has made films like 'Commando' and 'Fire Starter' and 'Roller Boogie'. Roller Boogie? Linda Blair? Anybody? Those are some heavy duty movies right there. Yeah, those movies were made thirty years ago, and more modern audiences would know Mr. Lester more for stuff like 'Pterodactyl' and 'Groupie', but we were holding out hope. Tragically, things started out bad for 'Poseidon Rex' from the word go as the original star, Corin Nemec, nearly died in a boating accident when filming began, and it was pretty much downhill from there. Brian Krause stepped in for Corin Nemec and Brian Krause is a more than able to stand in for Corin Nemec, so Brian wasn't really the issue. Neither was Anne McDaniels really. True enough, we didn't buy her as Micro marine biological Paleontologist, but she brought other critical elements to her character.

It's just that nothing in the movie really seemed to click together. Yes, the acting was largely terrible, the special effects were suspect, the logic behind everything happening was non-existent… but we expected that much. The hope, with these types of films, is that in the midst of all of those expected drawbacks that there is fun to be had. 'Poseidon Rex' wasn't campy enough to be fun as it tended to take itself far too seriously, and while it was bad, it wasn't bad enough to be terrible fun if for no other reason Mark L. Lester knows how to direct a semi competent movie, even though I have to say this one was guided as if everyone was on vacation in Belize for real. Including during production. The pacing and feel was just so lackadaisical and listless and boring, with the main goal, at least to an outsider looking in at a TV screen, was just get the day over with so we can all drink and party at night. That's cool, and that's why I want to be down, but somebody still has to watch these movies… that somebody being me more often than not.

Should one have expectations of a crazy low budget movie calling itself 'Poseidon Rex'? Yes, some kind of expectations, of course. And as low as our expectations might have been, they still weren't met. But I will change my tune for a free trip to Belize.