The Jurassic Games is a 2018 action film set in the near future where 10 death row convicts are forced to compete in a virtual reality game that pits them against dinosaurs and each other.
Remember The Running Man? Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s classic cheesy thriller about convicts fighting for life in a play to the death game show? Sure you do. It was goofy and gory and great fun, and probably not where you thought I’d start with a rundown of a movie featuring the word ‘Jurassic’ in the title. Undoubtedly, writer/director Ryan Bellgardt is hitching a ride on the Jurassic franchise wagon, but in the end, the film is more related to the Arnie film, though not nearly as innovative, a low-budget effort that is certainly amped with energy and plenty of B-movie flare but not much more.
Somewhere in the not too distant future, the rules have changed for handling death row inmates, and good news, it taps right into the growing bloodlust of modern audiences looking for more chills and thrills with its entertainment. It seems now, ten prisoners are given a chance for freedom by participating in The Jurassic Games, a virtual reality program that drops them into a dino-filled environment where in-game death equals real-life lethal injection. Last person standing gets a ticket home. With a diverse lot of characters, including race, gender, and age, the contests hook up and head out, the clock ticking and a hungry viewership wanting the worst.
One of the issues low budget filmmakers have in trying to tell big budget stories is working with so little in selling ambitions that often can’t be reached. This tends to leave these film with crippling CGI that yank us right out of the world they’ve tried to build. At least The Jurassic Games manages to set themselves apart with its visuals, the surprisingly solid effects well above par throughout. Sure, it’s not Jurassic World good, but dang, it’s way better than you’d expect. Kudos to the effect’s team for doling out some genuinely toothy beasts, even if a few of those on the hunt were actually vegetarians.
Story-wise though, we’re not working with much, the premise a setup to introduce all sorts of nasty troublemakers who get their turn against each other and the hordes of roaming carnivores. The cast try their best but are sidelined much of the time by generic writing and plotting, not to mention one dimensional personalities. There’s a vile host (Ryan Merriman), a heartless producer (Perrey Reeves), a reporter with a conscience and a slew of inmates who run the spectrum of killers and maniacs, with Katie Burgess a terrific standout. The real problem is that we never truly get a chance to get behind the film’s positioned hero (Adam Hampton), a man who claims to be innocent, but is not all that memorable, even if he’s the most charismatic.
Still, there’s some interesting things happening here, especially in the last act, and some attempts at social commentary that have some sting, even if the film lacks a larger impact with its message. Its ‘controversy’ is nothing new, with plenty of movies tackling the morality of such ‘games,’ leaving this a familiar story with a dinosaur twist, a decided plus. The Jurassic Games isn’t really interested in weight, putting most of its efforts on action, and tries hard to deliver. These days, a movie with dinosaurs doesn’t haven much chance to offer any real wonder, but the issue here is its lack of joy, trying to keep more on the side of dark than fun. As such, it safely squeezes itself into a growing genre of smaller studio movies that have long found fans from late night cable TV movies to direct-to-video releases and now digital downloads. Given its enterprising ending, this might make a few new fans.