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Okay, okay. I know. Cowboys and dinosaurs, right? Absolutely. I love this movie as much now as I did when I watched it thirty years ago as a child desperate for dinosaurs...any dinosaurs...to be depicted in films. Believe me, I watched so many creature features and let's be honest, most of them were pretty dull. The best one's were always with effects courtesy of the great Harryhausen, of course. 'Gwangi' is head and shoulders my favourite. Is that because of the acting talent in the movie? Er, 'fraid not. James Franciscus looks unnervingly like Dick Van Dyke and is just as annoying. Gila Golan, despite being dubbed through the whole movie, really struggles to convince as the owner of a Wild West show, or indeed a human being. But you don't watch a film like this for the actors, do you? So here's why this film is amazing. The tiny horse. The pterodactyl. The elephant slam down. The big lizards. And of course, Gwangi the Allosaurus. Fighting cowboys in Mexico. But really, for me, it's the tiny horse. Best bit of stop-motion this side of a tauntaun. The film cracks along, you can enjoy the slightly hokey dialogue, marvel at the performance of Laurence Naismith as the professor (I don't think he has tenure) and wish you too could find a tiny horse. Splendid.
score 9/10
bryn-middleton-BM 28 September 2014
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3094604/ |
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28-2-2021 22:58:11