*** Stop-Motion Dinosaurs? Yabba Dabba Doo!

Even though everybody knows by now that dinosaurs and humans never existed at the same time, they decided to make a remake of the 1939 iguana-rama movie anyways. At least they used Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion effects this time, for the most part.

This is an interesting movie in the fact that there is no understandable dialogue in this movie, just a bunch of grunts, yells, and name-calling. Still, there is a plot. It's tough to follow at times, but they did the best they could to portray it without subtitles or "fictioness dubbing", but it's there. And they made it as simple as possible: Tumak of the rock people gets in a fight and walks away from his tribe, meets Launa of the shell people, falls in love, gets banished from that tribe to, finds out about his brother's evil plans, starts a war, and then a volcano blows up. There is also a bunch of subtle plot things, but it's tough to pick them out. I'm not so good at body gestures (except the obvious ones of course).

There are two main draws to this movie: the great special effects by Ray Harryhausen, and Raquel Welch. The dinos add the substance and the reason why I reviewed this movie, and the scantily clad cave girls add the original big draw for hormone-hyper teenagers (and they sold a lot of posters while they were at it). But what are also there is the cavemen themselves. It tried to give a realistic view of a stereotypical idea. It failed in the small areas, like having people wearing fur in a hot desert and woman with shaved legs, but not the big ones (and at least it didn't have men dragging woman by their hair, they are drug around under their own power). It is quite realistic, except the dinosaurs and the giant animals and those things in the cave, but they were added to add fun. But despite the fun stuff and the fact it was really sunny out, it is quite a dark epic movie. But, like the music here, it gets a little whacked.

But they flintstone-ish plot is not the review reason, it's the dinosaurs! They were well done, realistic and cool-looking. OK, so they were extra-large, but that's typical. Not only do you get an apatasaurus, a triceratops, a bunch of pterodactyls, and a ceratosaurus (T-Rex with horn on nose), but you also get an archelon (giant sea turtle). Still, it isn't all stop-motion. There is a giant spider and yep, a giant iguana. A bit of a lapse in the good special effects, but it was done in a way where the best it can be was this (and it pays homage to the original movie, and at least it doesn't have a fin taped on his back!). Not only do you get a lot of animals, but you also get a lot of great scenery. It was shot in the Canary Islands, and it really adds to the cavemen-like feel.

This is actually a pretty good movie. It gets a little weird and dull at times, but it is pretty good. It was British made, but other than a slightly James-Bondish-feal (is that a word?), it is documentary like. It is as realistic as a fakey cavemen movie can get! For great stop-motion dinosaurs with scantily clad cavewoman thrown in, this is a good movie to turn to!

Great plot (if you can figure it out)

Great special effects

Realistic movie for an unrealistic premise.

Nice scenery.

Nice dinosaurs with an iguana thrown in!

Weird music

Unrealistic at times

Ends abruptly

What he say?

A little to many caveman vs. caveman fighting

Flintstones, meet the Flintstones! Yabba Dabba Doo!

Credits