Dollar Tree Cinema: The Jurassic Games

“The Jurassic Games” (2018)
Starring Ryan Merriman, Adam Hampton, Katie Burgess, Perrey Reeves
Directed by Ryan Bellgardt
Written by Ryan Bellgardt, Galen Christy and Adam Hampton
Not rated, but PG-13 or so violence and language

I'm going to try to dial back the spoilers here, but you need to know something going into “The Jurassic Games:”

The dinosaurs aren't real.

I mean, of course they're not actually real, but in the reality of the movie, they also aren't real. They're virtual reality constructs for the titular reality TV* show that pits 10 death row inmate in a survival contest against each other and dinosaurs. I'm not sure why this disappointed me, but it did.

Also a bit misleading is the DVD box art. This is an unrated, Dollar Tree purchase that is clearly trying to capitalize on two franchises that probably each had bigger craft services budgets than this entire movie. But those are some pretty sharply rendered dinosaurs, much more realistic than what we get in the film. And that soldier beneath the title, flanked by a triceratops and velociraptors? Never shows up.

I'm not going to rag on the effects which are, actually, better than I expected. And the fact that the dinosaurs aren't supposed to be real in the movie itself gives them a little more insulation. They only need to look like elaborate special effects, because that's what they are. That logic may fall apart when you consider the human contestants and their surrounding environment are also virtually rendered, but now who's thinking about this too much?**

“The Jurassic Games” is an annual, televised event in which prisoners sentenced to die by lethal injection get a shot at life and a pardon if they can be the last one standing in this virtual Land of the Lost. They're going to die anyway, and they deserve it, the reasoning goes, so what's the harm in a massive audience enjoying their deaths?

Presiding over it is a smarmy host (Merriman) wearing a stylish sabretooth tiger skull to explain the rules and prod them along. He also provides the narration and backstory for each of the convicted killers, awkwardly and disturbingly trying to straddle the line between looking down on the contestants and trying to get the audience to care about them. That's not a criticism of the performance; it's the nature of the show within the movie.

The movie drops us right in on the opening of the latest season, introducing us to the cast as we go along. The main-est character is Tucker (co-writer Hampton), a family man sentenced to die for murdering his wife, even though he maintains his innocence. Many in the audience, including his teenage kids, believe him.

The main reason this movie caught my attention is dinosaurs, but I'd seen a clip of it while looking up information on “The Sneak Over,” another #DollarTreeCinema installment. It was also filmed in Oklahoma and co-starred Burgess, who plays Joy, a young death row inmate whose crimes aren't fully explained but whose Joker-esque bloodthirstiness is readily on display.

(Burgess isn't the only performer I recognized. I'm pretty sure the pterodactyls that menace the contestants are the kids from that PBS show “Dinosaur Train,” all grown up and looking to shed their squeaky clean images like former Disney Channel stars.)

Shiny? Don?

Other contestants include Ren (Tiger Sheu), a martial artist hitman who assassinated a senator; Dr. Eli Franklin, a professor who set off a bomb at the school where he taught; two redneck brothers; a drug lord; and Albert (Luke Wyckoff), whose defining character trait is “cannibal.”

Despite awkward dialogue and delivery, the characters and some of the dynamics established are pretty interesting. The drug lord (Dylan Cox) tries to form an alliance with the brothers by promising to pay for their dying mother's cancer treatment and saying he can get the three of them out alive. Contestant Stephanie (Cate Jones) is so quiet and timid you wonder how the heck she wound up on this roster, only to discover she has a resume as bloody as anyone's.

But the movie doesn't let many of these storylines play out, seeming almost to winnow down the list of contenders starting with the most interesting. Like with the effects, it feels a little silly complaining about a lack of depth given what I was watching, but there was potential there.

Tucker is the guy you root for by default, but it's more because of the circumstances than anything about Hampton's performance. Burgess plays a psycho killer well, if not a little tropey.

The action and story aren't limited to the virtual arena, as we follow director Savannah (Reeves) and the never-named Host behind the scenes and witness their cold-blooded machinations. Interviewer Laura (Erika Daly) questions her role in the whole thing, and there's a subplot involving a group of protesters called the Cavemen, who oppose the brutal competition.

There's material here about dehumanizing entertainment and the detachment of viewers watching real people suffer, but it's pretty standard.

Still, there's worse ways to spend $1.25 (stupid inflation; do I have to hashtag it #Dollar25TreeCinema now?) and just under 90 minutes.

* – Is it “reality” TV if most of it isn't real?

** – Fine. Both of us.