Recent creature features such as Big Ass Spider have approached their task with a tongue in cheek humour that is essential if you are working within the confines of a tight budget. These filmmakers have an intelligent, knowing sense of their production’s strengths and limitations but unfortunately Poseidon Rex doesn’t fall into this category.
For reasons that are never fully explained Jackson Slate (Brian Krause) is a deep sea diver tasked with recovering lost treasure in the lagoon of a small island off the coast of Belize for a local gangster. When his companions set off charges on the sea floor they release an ancient beast that then proceeds to terrorise the island’s population. Jackson must team up with scientist Sarah (Anne McDaniels) and a random tourist to thwart the rampaging dinosaur. Poseidon Rex is a preposterous film but this isn’t what ultimately lets it down.
Compared with a premise such as Sharknado, Mark Lester’s film is relatively traditional but it just doesn’t do enough to engage the viewer in any way. The story itself is reasonable enough for a production of this nature but it almost feels while watching that the filmmakers haven’t really put their heart and soul into it. Many of the scenes feel unfinished or badly thought out and there are some, such as a curiously contrived sex scene, that appear simply inserted into the narrative, as if the produces had a check list they had to complete.
The performances are weak and stereotyped at best and the direction and editing offer little in the way of generating suspense or terror, something that might be expected given there is a huge, prehistoric killer wandering around the resort. The worst element though, and by far the most disappointing, is the CGI. At a time when even the effects in the mighty Jurassic Park are beginning to look a little dated, the dinosaur on display in Poseidon Rex is barely worthy of being mentioned in the same breath. This is a supposedly terrifying apex predator that looks so pathetically unconvincing as to not even generate a “so bad it’s good” chuckle.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Sadly positives are so wholly scarce in Poseidon Rex as to render the whole film somewhat embarrassing. For such an experienced filmmaker as Lester, who understands humour and timing given he directed the wonderfully quotable Schwarzenegger vehicle Commando in the 80’s, this is surely a miss-step to be struck from the record. Poseidon Rex is a film that is to be avoided at all costs that will offer nothing but disappointment to any unwary viewer.
