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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
 Posted - 04/20/2008 : 2:59:02 PM
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When this movie was released in early 1985, I hadta hadta HADTA see it. Like most 11-year-olds, I was absolutely bugs about dinosaurs. So missing it was not an option. I really loved the movie, especially after I learned that the hero was played by The Greatest American Hero. Way cool! What’s not to like?
After seeing it three times in the theater, I forgot all about it until a couple months ago, when I watched it as a double-feature with another ’85 jungle movie, Greystoke, which I had also really loved as a kid. And I noticed that Greystoke sat on Baby’s face and took a dump and left s**t rings all over Baby’s neck. Watching Baby is like watching your 5-year-old bowl a strike with the bumper lanes on and jump up and down in jubilation. It’s adorable. Watching Greystoke is like watching an adult pick up the 4-10 split and not even react because he’s done it before. It’s impressive.
As Sardu mentioned, Baby seems to have gone totally unnoticed by our favorite review/dissection sites. Even the ones that aren’t particularly interested in highlighting lousy movies over good ones have nothing about Baby. That’s a shame, because while it’s certainly not a terribly good movie, it’s equally certainly not a boring movie. Not at all.
So let’s rectify its exclusion, hm?
Who loves ya, Baby?
The DVD is absolutely minimal. No bonus features at all. The front cover blub is from the LA Times and reads, “A cross between Raiders of the Lost Ark and E.T.!” A cross of <fill-in-the-blank> and E.T. usually means that there’s going to be gratuitous cuteness to water down and ultimately destroy what good comes out of the similarity to the other film. If you’re expecting something along the lines of Raiders, this’ll be so here. I wasn’t though. I never would’ve thought to associate it with Raiders until the blurb mentioned it. The back cover blurb is even better. USA Today gushes, “A jungle adventure!”
**shrug** At least you can’t accuse them of making biased judgments.
The movie’s logo is also interesting. It seems that someone has appropriated and altered the Jurassic Park logo for Baby’s packaging. You know the logo I mean: The half-circle with the silhouette profile of a T-Rex with a yellow/orange background? This movie features the same half-circle and yellow/orange background, with silhouettes of a baby brontosaurus and human male and female trudging behind. Perhaps I’m mistaken and Baby had the logo all along and Jurassic Park appropriated it, but I’m not betting on it.
Lastly, this movie’s full title sucks. Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend.
An alternate title was Dinosaur: Secret of the Lost Legend. That’s a fair bit better, because it makes it clear what the movie is about for those who don’t want to refer to the movie by full title. “Baby” by itself sounds like the name of a gynocentric psychological suspense thriller. Even so, the “Secret of the Lost Legend” bit is three shades of redundant. First, if the legend is lost, then it’s obviously a secret, right? Baby: The Lost Legend. That works, doesn’t it? Second, if the legend is being kept in secrecy, then it’s not lost to those who are keeping the secret, nor is it lost to those who don’t know it because they never knew it in the first place. Baby: Secret of the Legend. Mm….yuck. Third, the intro exposition text will make it plain that the legend is still being talked about by the inhabitants of the movie’s setting. Therefore, the legend is neither secret nor lost. Baby: The Legend. **shrug** I dunno.
How’s this? Dinosaur. No post-colonic script at all. There. Pretty cool, huh?
Okay! Enough stalling. Here we go!
The opening exposition in pleasant white-on-blue reads thusly:
“In the Equatorial Rain Forest of West Africa, rumors persist of a huge reptile-like creature. Said to be larger than an adult elephant, the natives call it Mokele-Mobembe. Numerous expeditions have been mounted in its pursuit. So far none has met success.”
This is good. Brief, not giving away anything, and the ungrammatical “none has met success” is allowable because if any had met success, the movie would be over already.
Cut to the skyline of an African metropolis that I can’t identify. I was born in Ghana, and wondered if it was Accra. My mother, who lived in Ghana for 8 years, is visiting today, and I just called her in to take a look. She can’t tell either. We suck. The credits play over genuine footage of a street parade. Topless women, a military marching band, armed soldiers marching while exaggeratedly swinging their arms, the whole bit. This is cool stuff to look at. Classy!
In the cast, we’ve got William Katt, Sean Young, and Patrick McGoohan. A bunch of Central African-sounding names, Edward Hartwicke (!), music by Jerry Goldsmith. Lookin’ good! Directed by B.W.L. Norton. FOUL!!! Anybody with more than one extraneous initial in their name is undeserving of being taken seriously unless it’s pronounced as an acronym. Apparently, he knows it, because he now goes by Bill Norton. This was only his second or third movie, and after this, he stuck almost entirely to TV, which he still does today.
The credits and parade footage are about two minutes long, and it does give a real good sense that this movie is serious about authenticity of location. After the credits, we see Patrick McGoohan, bearded, suited, and wearing a Panama hat, stalking an unknown middle-aged white dude through the throngs lining the streets. Via quick cuts, McGoohan stabs the guy in the gut, takes his briefcase, and vanishes through the back alleyways. Pausing to look through his loot, he examines several photographs, one of which is a grainy but unmistakable shot of a brontosaurus in the tropical forest.
Cut to a forest clearing, where a white dude is leading some black dudes through a sandlot baseball game. Mild humor as the batter shows that he’s not quite sure about running the bases. Close-up to the white dude, and it’s William Katt. Lookin’ pretty strappin’. Not really muscular, but not an ounce of fat on him. He pauses to take a telephone call. It’s….somebody…who tells him that there’s a job opening at the sports desk that starts next week if he can get back to the U.S. by then. He gleefully accepts. Okay, he’s a journalist and he isn’t too thrilled to be in M’Bufued Egypt. Or Senegal or whatever.
Elswhere in the camp, Sean Young exits a hut, looking svelte in tan shorts and Everlast tanktop. She enthusiastically shows a large bone of some kind to Patrick McGoohan. She thinks it might be a brontosaurus vertebra, but he authoritatively-but-gently breaks it to her that it’s just a giraffe vertebra. Young is embarrassed, but McGoohan reassures her that “You’re the brightest post-doc we’ve had out heah.” So she’s a scientist. She’s a Ph.D.* Katt enters, and the three of them exposit that:
- Her name is Susan, and his name is George.
- She really wanted to make a major discovery before her time here was over,
- Susan and George are husband and wife, and
- McGoohan shows classic British reserve (I’m afraid your wife has suffered a slight scientific disappointment”).
[* - She knows what she’s doing.]
As Susan and George exit, McGoohan’s assistant Nigel (Edward Hartwicke) enters. As they watch Susan and George motorcycle away, McGoohan (whose name here is Eric) reveals that he suspects the bone is not a giraffe at all, but really is a brontosaurus bone. He expresses professional respect for Susan, but warns Nigel that she must not learn that her discovery is real after all. Nigel mentions that Etienne was murdered, apparently the guy McGoohan knifed in the opening scene. McGoohan acts detachedly disappointed about it. He then tells Nigel to prepare for a trip to Bateke, where Susan found the bone. I had to look it up, but Bateke is a jungle/savannah region of Gabon. Beautiful country, looks like.
Brief throwaway scene of Susan and George talking over beers at night about he wants to have a bunch of kids, while she’s still down about the bone being a mere giraffe bone. Interesting reversal from the usual: He wants kids, she doesn’t. And while he’s excited about his new job in the US, he seems happy about it more because it gets him out of Africa than for anything else. Still, it doesn’t seem forced. She isn’t hostile to the idea of kids, she’s just not thinking about it right now.
Cut to the next day. She says goodbye to a friend. McGoohan pulls up in a jeep, wishes her the best, offers to give potential employers his highest recommendation, and tells her that a Dr. Pierre wants to see her before she goes. She asks if he’s going somewhere, he says yeah but only for a couple days, bwahaha. End scene. At this point, I'm wondering why McGoohan is keeping Susan in the dark about this. Obviously, he wants the glory of finding this thing, but I don't think that that glory would be diminished if he took a protege who is already equally hell-bent for bronto with him. You'd think he'd be glad to have her along. By the end of the movie, this question will be....maybe partially answered.
In Dr. Pierre’s office, Dr. Pierre (who only has this one scene) tells Susan that the Senuofo tribe had two fatalities due to what turned out to be food poisoning. She tells him that she’s a paleontologist, not a physician. He tells her that the Senuofo have had the same diet for a thousand years and no recorded food poisoning cases before (given their barely-past-Stone-Age status, I don’t think that would mean much), but had recently eaten an animal that “they can’t or won’t identify.” He breaks out a bone like to one Susan had such high hopes about. She dejectedly tells him it’s just a giraffe, he says impossible because it’s not a mammal. She compares the bone to her own bone and assumes a thoughtful look.
Not bad. 11 minutes in, the characters have been introduced, and the plot is underway!
I'll continue tomorrow or Tuesday, unless I.S.A.S.T.M.T.S.U. |
Edited by - Food on 04/20/2008 3:09:32 PM
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2008 : 10:28:59 PM
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| I do remember the name B. W. L. Norton. He had at least one other credit of, uh, note. More American Graffiti. Bleah. |
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twitterpate
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
1026 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2008 : 3:17:59 PM
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Wait - a tribe with Stone Age technology, no refrigeration, periodic famines that might drive one to chow down on anything not moving - and they've never experienced food poisoning? That's kind of hard to believe.
Oh. No RECORDED cases of food poisoning. In a preliterate culture. That makes sense.
Keep it up, Food! I remember the ads for this one, but never got to see it myself. |
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Sardu
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1126 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2008 : 7:43:25 PM
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Patrick McGoohan is in this? I didn't know that- that kind of raises the cool factor a few points right there, cheesy flick or not.
"Meeting you makes me want to be a real noodle cook"
--Tampopo |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2008 : 9:17:37 PM
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Cut to that night. Susan and George are getting ready for bed while Susan reassures him that this new detour will only be a couple days out of their way. George is being all pissy about it because he wants to get back to the US to start his own new job. We get some good long looks of William Katt in only his boxers, and his body really is impressive. Not hugely buff; but lean, trim, fit. Lookin’ good!
He wakes up the next morning to find Susan gone, and a note on her pillow. He looks at it, then crumples and tosses it aside with his trademark Greatest American Hero “Damn!” Props to the movie for not having either him or a voiceover read it aloud. We can figure out what the gist of Susan’s note, so we don’t need to read/hear the exact words. Appreciated. Especially in an ostensible kids’ film. The profanity is also unusual for a kids’ film, and there’s a fair bit more of that to come. I don’t know if that was a factor in the movie’s mediocre box office showing, but it might’ve been.
Outside, he vainly follows a helicopter on his motorcycle for a while (at one point, he literally shakes a fist at the sky), shouting “Bitch!” as it pulls away. See? Two clear profanities in less than 30 seconds.
He motors to “Tableau Helicopter du Service,” where a black dude with a veerry thick sub-Saharan accent (had to use subtitles for him) and says “Definitely!” a lot hooks him up with a hydroplane transport so he can go after Susan.
Cut to the hydroplane soaring over the treetops. The pilot, Kenge Obe, shouts an advertisement-style monologue at George over the engines. Kenge is a semi-Westernized local (Jimi Hendrix t-shirt with sleeves cut off, sunglasses), with a pretty thick accent and fun playful demeanor. Imagine if Jake from Jaws: The Revenge had a Swahili cousin, and you’ve got the idea. George is half-panicked about flying in this crate of an aircraft, but Kenge tells him not to worry, everything’s under control, etc. Kenge even puts on some American guitar rock and starts groovin’ out (ain’t Hendrix, it’s definitely 80s, but I don’t know who it is). Then George begins shouting a capsule summary of what he’s doing out here at Kenge, while Kenge shouts back some touristy On-Your-Left-You-Can-See stuff. It’s irritating listening to two characters yell at each other at the same time. C’mon, movie.
George hollers to Kenge that his wife acts like he’s insane when he mentions having kids, that he’s followed her here for six months, and that he can’t let his wife get away with vanishing on him in the middle of the night with just a note “like I’m a goddamn milkman or something!” He asks what Kenge would do. Kenge looks thoughtful and says with deliberation, “If it were my wife,”…thinks about it, shrugs…”I’d whip the bitch.”
That entire conversation was just under two minutes long, and it was all as a buildup for that one punchline. To give the movie credit, it was well-delivered. Call me what you like, ladies, but I laughed out loud.
The plane lands at a village, where a funeral ceremony is in progress. Folks in unusual costumes dance around the wrapped corpses while other villagers clap along. I have no idea how authentic this is, but if there are any giveaways that it isn’t, I can’t spot it. The long shots certainly look like this was shot on location in rainforest country. Again, I’m impressed.
George finds Susan with some Red Cross people tending to a sick old man. George clearly wants to ream Susan out for ditching like that, but Susan pre-empts any of it by staying professionally engaged to the task at hand. The dying man, who Kenge translates as the chief of the tribe, scratches a brontosaurus into the dirt to illustrate what kind of animal meat he and the others had eaten that made them sick. They found it upriver, he says. Susan asks “Where upriver?” and we cut immediately to the hydroplane in flight again. 18 minutes in, and the movie is still keepin’ the plot movin’ along. There is a very very short shot inside the plane of Susan throwing her arms around George and exulting, “George, thaaaank youuuuu!!!!” while George stares forward with a Why-Am-I-Even-Here look on his face.
Cut to Patrick McGoohan in a hut somewhere. Nigel enters and tells him that the Red Cross has just informed him that Susan is tracking a potential brontosaurus upriver of a Sangha village, causing McGoohan to get all upper-class British miffed and exclaim “We’re at the wrong place!” No poisoned dates around, though. I wish I hadn’t read that blurb, now I can’t stop lookin’ for Raiders parallels. He ends the scene by whispering to nobody, “She’s a persistent little devil, isn’t she?” This makes me wonder all over again why he didn’t take her with him. He’s hot for bronto, she’s hot for bronto; he seems to be in charge of the expedition, meaning that she, as an assistant, isn’t gonna be stealing his thunder if they find it. Again, there’s only a kinda-not-really answer to this.
Cut to Susan and George by a riverbank. The plane is being…prepped, I guess…by Kenge and a more-native-seeming assistant. Susan theorizes that if this is where the tribe found the carcass and it ain’t there now, then it must’ve drifted downstream. Kenge is happy to fly them further downriver, and offers to rent out his assistant, radios, and hiking provisions to last for two days, returning after that time to pick them up. He and the assistant have a shouting match in their own language is. Kenge’s body language seems to say, “I’m the boss, do what I say,” while the assistant seems terrified, making throat-slashing gestures and going-crazy gestures. Then Kenge smiles at Susan and George and says, “Noooo problem.” I remember laughing at this in the theater and hearing others laugh, too. Today, it’s just meh.
More hydroplane footage. It was here that I noticed the soundtrack; or more specifically, I noticed that there hadn’t been any soundtrack until now. There was the parade music in the intro, the rock music during the George/Kenge flight, and the tribal music during the funeral bit, but this is the first music that is obviously not coming from something in the setting itself. A 93-minute movie, and you’ve kept Jerry Goldsmith sitting on the bench for the first 20 minutes of it. You sure you know what you’re doing, movie? He’s the biggest name associated with this production, turn him loose!
Cut to…downriver, I guess. Susan and George are just standing there when they notice that the Kenge’s assistant (Kenge already dropped ‘em off and left) is paddling his rubber raft away as fast as he can. When they shout where ya’ goin’, he answers with his own unsubtitled language. I guess he’s too scared to stick around. George just looks miffed about it, while Sean Young looks kinda zonked.
Some time later, Susan and George* are trudging through dense foliage, when suddenly a bunch of spear-wielding natives surround them! It’s just like the 50s! Next, they’ll be in a giant pot up to their necks in boiling water. William Katt and Sean Young seem to realize the goofiness, too, as they really don’t look believably frightened. The obvious leader of the tribe appears. He’s obviously the leader because he struts around his captives while everyone else just stands there. But he’s a bit different than you’d expect from this sort of movie situation. Instead of the standard extrabuff fancy-dressed maybe-greying-haired bravado-solemn dude who cops a who-has-entered-our-domain attitude, this guy is no buffer than any of the others, maybe a little softer actually; he doesn’t wear anything unusual except a genuine loincloth as opposed to the butt-floss everyone else is wearing; and he actually seems to be making fun of his captives.
[* - Susan and George are very seldom separated in this movie, and “Susan and George” is tiresome to type. Henceforth, “Susan and George” will be “S&G.”)
Two well-delivered deadpans, a profanity, and National Geographic-style mass nudity later, S&G are being pawed by a few dozen men, women, and children; until they become entranced by Susan’s Polaroid photos, leading to a merry montage of thrilled natives discovering the joy of seeing oneself in photographs. George’s frantic “Susan, don’t! Their soul!” was cool.
Cut to a close-up of a pot of gruel. We can tell what’s comin’, and it mostly plays as expected. George accepts the offered delicacy, takes a hearty taste, tries not to appear grossed out (“Absolute craporama! Dead ants…..LIVE ants!”), and the natives laugh at him. He offers the chief a granola bar. The chief cautiously takes a bite, and once George isn’t looking, spits it out with a grossed-out look of his own. That kicked ass! Mostly because the guy playing the chief is a naturally funny-lookin’ dude. Later in the movie, that attribute will be good for another good giggle. George looks over at Susan, who is hangin’ with the women of the tribe. She is holding and cooing to an infant, and S&G exchange smiles. I figured this might be Susan coming around to the idea of having children, but…**waggles hand back and forth**…kinda, but not really.
27 minutes in, and the movie’s doin’ okay. Lotta cussin’ for a kids’ flick, though.
I’ll continue either tomorrow evening or Wednesday.
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Nlneff
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
USA
84 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 2:59:11 PM
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Great review so far.
I do seem to recall this movie had way too much violence and language for a kids movie, alone with some sterotypical characters.
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 7:26:38 PM
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| I actually saw this in the theater when it came out, and I was pretty surprised (and being a shy 13-year-old, quite embarrassed) by the amount of nudity in a PG-rated movie. |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2008 : 9:51:59 PM
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That night, S&G are sampling more native cuisine (“near beer,” says George approvingly), as the natives dance around a fire. Susan shows the Chief a drawing of a brontosaurus, which he responds to with a brief hiss that might translate to “Shut up about that!” S&G start feeling woozy and acting all buzzed from the drink. The tribal drums stop, and the camera pulls away from George’s face to reveal that everyone is gone except for S&G. Okay, we can say that they were buzzed into time dilation during which everyone left. It seems sinister, but it never plays into anything. As near as I can guess, the plot needed S&G to get separated from the tribe, and this is the best anyone could come up with.
Cut to later, as George has set up a tent. He’s feelin’ frisky, but Susan ain’t really into it. They start hearing unexplainable sounds, a rumbling, a trumpety sound that they fail to convince themselves is just the wind. They remark how surreal this whole experience this is. Susan asks him if he’s sorry he’s out here, and he seems sincere when he says, “No, no….Really, Susan, I’m not.” This is kinda interesting. This brings the why-did-she-drag-me-out-here subplot to an end, but it comes five seconds too early; because suddenly their tent is thrashed about and lifted airborne by a brontosaurus! Pretty nifty first appearance for that which the audience came to see: Low shot in the dark of an animatronic bronto neck and head poking through the trees. Then S&G react to the matting in of the bronto’s legs as they move past the camera.
That’s the point at which I can believe that George would no longer have any qualms about being there. He was sore about the diversion at least in part because he felt it was a wild goose chase. Following tribal superstitious rumors of a dinosaur? Nonsense! But once he’s actually seen the thing, any angry husband would catch the spirit of the chase instantly. Not before, though.
Cut to the next next day. McGoohan and Nigel are passengers on a military transport barge, where Gabonese soldiers are having a great time, blasting keyboard-heavy ‘80s rock, taking target practice with thrown fruit, etc. McGoohan and the Colonel (who never gets a name) that the natives are terrified of the bronto(s), but McGoohan himself has been pursuing it for years.
Cut the S&G as they come to a lake clearing and freeze in shock. The soundtrack goes Full Majestic as they, and we, get a good long look at a brontosaurus standing awesomely in the water. The music sounds great, the dino looks very good, the matting in of S&G is easily passable, Susan’s “It’s beauuutiful” totally f**kin’ sucks. Why do chicks always gotta say that?
George says, “The wind’s at his back. He can’t get our scent.” If you say so, George. The plants in both his shots and the dino’s shots are totally motionless. This scene looks like it was shot in a studio. Even the plants S&M are crouching in look fake.
They follow the dino further along, Susan snapping pics nonstop, until they find another bronto and it’s baby! Susan exults at the sight of the title character, and the whole shot of the three dinos does look way awesome*. George says that she’ll be the most famous scientist in the world, and she answers with a kiss that he’ll be the journalist to cover it.
[* - I don’t really pay much attention to the whole aspect/ratio whatever, but even my untrained eyes can recognize that the 1.33:1 ratio of this thing isn’t doing this movie justice. In some shots, a dino will be far to the side of the screen, or a close-up of S and/or G will be far tighter than it needs to be. A mild distraction, but it’s there.
Our first close-up of Baby itself is where the E.T. aspect of the movie appears. Baby is realized by a guy in a suit. Admittedly, it’s one of the most convincing guys-in-a-suit I’ve ever seen, but the sheer cuteness of Baby just screams out at the viewer, with it’s big bright yellow eyes. It chases a butterfly for a bit, the butterfly lands on its face, Baby makes cute little honking sounds, and it’s just adooorrrrrable, omigod.
Hey Baby: Eat somebody, dammit!
Mommasaurus hears me, spots S&G, and roars. S&G take off. Credit to S&G, they don’t waste time gawkin’ like most cinematic explorers do. Susan starting taking pix in record time, and S&G fled at the first roar without any of this what-does-it-want crap.
Time for some prolonged cutsiness! S&G have the idea to place one of Kenge’s transmitters on Baby. So they collect some fruit things (mini-lemons, they look like) and set them out for the dinos. George refers to himself as George of the Jungle after swinging around on a vine. The dinos pig out by sticking their heads near the pile of fruit and working their jaws, but not actually placing the edibles into their orifices.
Later, George is bathing in the lake. He and Baby play inadvertent hide-and-seek with one and then the other peeking out of the water looking for the other, while Susan coos. Sean Young is irritating when she coos. Baby exits the water, and Susan feeds it more fruit. Her clinical detachment is almost out the window as she coos that its skin isn’t as scaly as she’d expect, and it’s ears (just holes in its head) are beautiful, etc. George attaches the transmitter to its leg as she marvels at how playful it is. In a meta moment, she looks at George quizzically and says, “Dinosaurs don’t play.”
They hear a roar, and we cut to an adult dino bellowing at Pat McGoohan and his armed expedition. How they caught up so quickly is never explained. The African rainforest is a BIG f**kin’ place. In long side shot, McGoohan approaches the dino slowly with what could be interpreted as awe. Naturally. But then we get a Dino-POV shot, and McGoohan is just kinda sauntering forward like it’s no big deal. If there was a thought balloon over his head, it’d read, “Well, my friend. We meet at last.” Nigel is beside him, armed with tranquilizer gun. McGoohan gets some horrible dialogue here, as he says, “Use the tranquilizer gun. In the neck. Aim carefully. And another. In the neck. Give it time.” The tranqs take about 30 seconds to knock out the dino. (Pip, are you reading this? If you are, we could use your expertise. How realistic is this, that a larger-than-elephant-sized animal could crash out from a pair of tranq darts in 30 seconds?) Aside from this no-brainer dialogue, this scene is pretty neat. The composite shots of the dino and McGoohan are almost seamless; and the dino’s body does convey a sense of huge mass as it crashes to the dirt. From 41:58 to 42:00, McGoohan’s face lights up in a priceless expression of excitement tempered by British reserve. The soldiers break out in cheer.
Until the other adult dino makes its presence known.
Sorry for the brief bit tonight, but the third period of the Game 7 Sharks-Flames is about to start, and I’ve already caught only bits and pieces of the first two periods to type this. I’ll continue tomorrow or Thursday.
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2008 : 5:09:30 PM
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Because of my love of movie serials, I think this is a GOOD place to pause, Food!
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2008 : 8:35:54 PM
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Othersaurus roars and stomps forward. The soldiers open fire while McGoohan shouts at them not to. They all scatter as the dino comes to a stop over the drugged-out body of its mate. I don’t think reptiles are into monogamy. As the dino…grieves, I guess…the soldiers who have now hidden in the bushes open fire and blast holes in its neck. It crashes to earth with its head right next to its mate’s. They coo at each other as one dies and the other goes to sleep. McGoohan, with quiet fury, asks the Colonel, “Have you any idea what you’ve done? It was a one-of-a-kind specimen.” I dig the Colonel’s answer: “No, professor. It was one of two,” pointing at the unconscious dino, “THAT is a one-of-a-kind specimen.”
Mmm….if this is supposed to be a kid’s film, I can see how it wouldn’t want to show much in the way of hot beast-on-man chompin’ action. For anything the least bit above kid-level, though, I do expect it. This no-human-casualities scene coupled with the profanity and nudity already seen leave me with no clue who the target audience is.
Then the movie takes a shift into full-blown fun goofiness. George barges in among them decrying the injustice of shooting the dinos. “I was under the impression you were a scientist!” he shouts at McGoohan. Liz Kingsley might’ve had that as an original title of her site before discarding it for something more efficient. The Colonel drops him with a Captain Kirk karate chop to the neck. Too cool! McGoohan orders him shot, which causes Susan run screaming onto the scene. A soldier aims at her, but takes an arrow in the neck before he can fire. The natives have arrived! We get a low-budget re-enactment of the raze-the-jungle scene from Predator as soldiers throw grenades and empty ammo clips into the trees. George, Susan, and Baby flee. Once the natives have also fled (Chief shouts something that seems like it might translate into, “You got lucky, chumps! We’ll whip your asses next time!” Serious, it’s like he lost a basketball game or something), McGoohan decides that rather than set up a field lab in this unfriendly place, he wants to take the living dino back.
Fade to later. Baby approaches the corpse of his Dad and shoos away the vultures that are devouring the carcass. Mom is nowhere in sight, so those soldiers must be excellent at quickly transporting huge-ass animals. He honks and moans in misery, then starts shedding tears! I don’t believe it! Movie, you gotta be kidding! Reptiles don’t care about familial bonds, and no animal aside from humans has tear ducts. At least I’m pretty sure that’s right, and I’m certain that no reptile has tear ducts. Does the movie not figure that the audience will get that Baby is in grief without #&$%@ tears?!?
Rectohemosaurus!
Back at camp, S&G find their tent thrashed apart and their equipment scattered everywhere. They exposit that the radio is gone, but the tape recorder and transmitter works fine. Odd. If the soldiers thrashed the camp and took the radio, why not take/destroy the other electronic equipment? They notice Baby still in grievosaurus mode, and Baby runs away from them when they try to approach. Susan looks thoughtful and says, “If we caught it, maybe we could beat Eric* back. It could be our discovery.”
Waitaminit. This would have to mean that she’s as glory-hungry as Eric is! The only difference between the two is that she’s got a relatively-easier-to-catch-and-transport baby dino, while he has a big-ass dino that must be tranquilized. Who am I supposed to be rooting for here? And it also brings up again why he didn’t just take Susan along on his dinoquest in the first place.
[* - Eric is the name of McGoohan’s character, but I’ve been calling him “McGoohan” for so long that I can’t break the habit.]
More cutesy! That afternoon, Baby comes upon S&G’s still-wrecked campsite. Baby sticks his head in a seabag and honks an sways around when he can’t dislodge the thing. When he finally does, he’s got George’s underwear fitted snugly on his face! I don’t know how in the world the snug fit happened, it must’ve involved some extremely creative and conscientious packing by George, but I do remember hearing everybody in the theater laugh, myself included. A small monkey whose been watching all this playfully interacts with Baby and dislodges the undies. Hearing the honks and moans of adult dinos (they sound like humpback whales), Baby explores into the trees. The sounds come from a speaker/tape recorder thing MacGyvered by S&G, who lure Baby into their tent. Baby is not happy about the subterfuge and takes off running while shrouded in the tent, but S&G trap him (actually, he runs into a tree that he doesn’t see cuz the tent is in his face) and calm him down like it’d that simple for domesticated mammals, let alone lizards.
Cut to McGoohan and Co. They’re paddling a single 4-person inflatable raft downriver, towing Mommasaurus behind on what looks like an ordinary wooden raft. Da f**k?!? How in the world are they able to pull the thing, and how is the thing staying afloat? Ridiculous! McGoohan cusses out the Colonel for being overzealous with the tranquilizers. Then he gets all friendly and says that he wants to see the Colonel promoted to General, mentioning that he has the ear of the President. I assume he means the President of Gabon or Ivory Coast (where this was filmed, I found out) or whatever nation Colonel serves. I suppose I can stretch my imagination enough to believe that an archeology professor might have an in with the President of a nation in which he searches for the legendary Mokele-Mobembe, but I can’t imagine him having that much of an in with him. By the movie’s end, I still won’t be quite clear as to where the movie was going with this.
Brief cute scene where Baby crashes out with S&G for the night, collapsing their tent.
The next day, comedy bit where Baby hindfoots George in the ‘nads, George disturbs a wasp nest (animated black dots to simulate wasps), hee hee, etc. Cut to Susan lathering George with mud for the stings. At this point, I noticed something: Susan, who planned for this trip, has worn two or three different outfits; while George, who didn’t plan for it, has been wearing the same purple blazer and khaki slacks the whole time. Nice attention to detail!
George gets frisky again, and this time Susan is up for it. They start making out shirtless with George unhooking her bra. Realizing that it can’t National Geographic its way out of this one, the movie has Susan’s bra stay on. Rubbish! What man in his right mind is gonna unhook the bra without removing it entire? Even allowing for the flatness of Sean Young, I can’t buy it, I just can’t. No dig on Young, though. She is beautiful.
Cutesy continues as Baby keeps trying to butt in, at one point French-kissing George’s nose. Young is convincing when she tries to scold Baby but can’t without starting to giggle. It is kinda adorable. Finally, Baby takes the hint and takes off.
I wonder if this isn’t supposed to mean something. Susan doesn’t want kids, but she seems to be enjoying having Baby around more the George does. She’s all nurturing while George is there pretty much because Susan is. But it’s never mentioned, and nothing more comes of it than this. So if there something to be read into this, it’s unusually subtle.
Cut to post-sex. S&G realize that Baby’s not around, and set out to find her. After an indeterminate passage of time, George thinks to use the transmitter/receiver to locate her. That would’ve been my first choice, but again, indeterminate passage of time. They find McGoohan and Co.’s base, with Mommasarus still drugged on the impossibly strong raft. Baby is nowhere in sight.
Not knowing what else to do, S&G decide to try to rescue Mom. I guess the soldiers didn’t bother posting a guard around Mom, because S&G are able to get right on board the raft and begin cutting the ropes that bind her. When the soldiers finally notice and fire their weapons into the air, S&G freeze up and surrender. Susan tries to make snide with McGoohan about this not being real paleontology, to which McGoohan replies, “Welcome to the People’s Ahmy.” I really wish the movie would specify what nation this is. The actor playing the Colonel gets to have some fun here, cussing out a defiant George.
That night, McGoohan visits a shed, where S&G are, for some reason, not bound or restrained in any way. He tells them that he read the notes confiscated from Susan (earlier, we’d seen brief shots of Susan taking notes, but I didn’t think to mention it), so he knows that there’s a hatchling somewhere out there and that S&G have tagged it with a transmitter. He evilly asks for their help in finding it, takes their silence for a negatory, and leaves.
Outside, Nigel is panicked that the Colonel has been drugging Mom so much that her heartbeat and breathing have become irregular and that something needs to be done about him. McGoohan, with his everpresent British calm, tells him that he’ll take care of it.
In the Colonel’s tent, McGoogan borrows a blowgun or something from Colonel, telling him as he loads it up that this is a special serum whose dart wouldn’t fit any of his own guns (smoothly delivered exposition to explain why he would need to ask for a different gun to administer it). He then fires the dart into the oblivious Colonel’s chest. Blooper here. When the Colonel gets shot, he’s sitting down; then there’s a cut to a different angle as McGoohan covers Colonel’s mouth to stifle the screams, and Colonel is suddenly on his feet.
Cut to the next morning. S&G are shoved out of their shack. A soldier informs McGoohan that S&G have killed the colonel, presenting a blowgun as evidence. McGoohan coolly says that it’s just as he thought: S&G are CIA spies trying to “prevent us from taking back the People’s discovery to the capital. It’s a plot to undermine the revolutionary government.” Damn, now I really wanna know which sub-Saharan African nation this is…..**shrug**…..Any of ‘em, I guess.
A soldier drops George with one punch, then….I don’t know if this is just goofy stuntwork or the result of the 1.33:1 ratio, but Susan seems to get knocked to the dirt of her own volition. Serious, it looks like she just falls onto her butt all by herself, although she’s not entirely in the shot, so I can’t tell for certain. It looks plenty goofy, though. Then the soldiers surround them with weapons drawn.
I'll continue tomorrow or Saturday. |
Edited by - Food on 04/24/2008 8:37:56 PM |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2008 : 10:04:34 PM
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I was VERY glad I didn't have any coffee or soft drink in my mouth when you said "Rectohemosaurus!" Would've been a pain cleaning that off the monitor. *g*
While I was uncomfortable with all the bare breasteses on display in the theater, I do remember getting all hot and bothered seeing Sean Young in her skivvies, even if it was a cop-out to leave the bra on. She may be nuts, but at least in the early 80's, she was pretty damn sexy, too.
Doin' great so far! |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 04/25/2008 : 8:24:18 PM
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McGoohan tells them to hold their fire.
Dammit, how am I supposed to make a cliffhanger interesting if the movie keeps goin’ all anticlimactic on me?
McGoohan tells the new squad leader than S&G’s transmitter will lead them to gold, which “CIA always has hidden.” Mmm…I’m not buying the squad leader buying this. He’s been there the whole time, he knows they’re after dinosaurs, I don’t think he’d believe McGoohan now.
Cut to S&G, McGoohan, Nigel, and three soldiers boarding a transport helicopter. I can’t identify what kind of helicopter, it’s like a pudgy Blackhawk, that’s the best I can do. They fly over the jungle terrain until the transmitter locates Baby, whose having cutesy fun with a tortoise. The squad leader in the cargo bay is unhappy that the transmitter has led them to a baby dino and not to gold, but doesn’t seem to mind that much, as he immediately grabs a tranq gun and tries to shoot the fleeing Baby. After a near-miss, S&G start grappling with him and another guard. We get the standard hanging-half-out-of-the-aircraft bit a la Rambo: First Blood: Part II, and I’ll give solid props that I can’t tell if the view out the craft is matted in or not. It look convincingly like they really are doing this a hundred feet off the ground.
Squad leader gets tossed out of the chopper, with a long shot of a mannequin plopping into the trees. The other soldier opens fire, but winds up shooting the pilot, causing the chopper to pitch and yaw. S&G jump out of the craft into the river. It’s pretty cool-lookin’, a long shot of the two of them jumping about….I’d say, 40-50 feet into the water. Prolly stuntmen, but not mannequins. Nice!
They swim to shore, where Baby is improbably standing there waiting for them. Up in the chopper, the pilot is merely wounded and follows S&G as they lead Baby into a cave that they just stumble upon. Convenient.
In the cave, the torch George lights is typically creating far more light than it should, as are those of McGoohan and Co. S&G disturb a bat’s nest. This is another moment where the ratio might be blowing this shot. A bat gets in Susan’s hair and presumably starts gnawing on her skull or something. In extreme close-up, Baby darts forth and grabs the bat in its jaws. I had to watch it three times to catch what was happening. It’s that incoherent.
The cave becomes an underground river that S&G slog through. Now it’s like First Blood. The river dead-ends at a waterfall. McGoohan and Co. catch up, and he gets to say in classic British-villian mode, “The game….is ovah.” I love it. George pushes Baby and Susan off the waterfall and jumps after. It’s a kick to see that William Katt just slaps an immobile Baby statue off the side with one hand. I giggled.
Up to this point, this cave scene has had no claustrophobic punch at all. But now that S&G are being swept down this torrent of a river, it becomes adequately so. The cave ceiling is just high enough for them to keep their heads over the water, and when they finally can’t get above water, the time they spend underwater and still live is believable.
Small digression: Whenever I see an underwater scene, I subconsciously hold my own breath to see if it’s believable that someone could keep their breath held that long. Usually it’s borderline plausible (Star Trek IV), other times it’s total rubbish (Alien: Regurgiation), but here, I can buy it no sweat. Props.
S&G and Baby pop out of another small waterfall into the outdoor air. This is realized in long shot with animated black dots simulating S&G and Baby.
Cut to later. Baby starts sniffing the air and bolts away from S&G. They follow, and find that Baby sniffs its mother, still being rafted away by the baddies. While S&G watch helplessly, McGoohan and Co. approach Baby in a motorraft and appropriate it. Susan says, “Well, at least she’s alive. I said that’s all I wanted.”
LIAR!!! That’s not what she said at all. She said that “It could be our discovery” (emphasis hers). Yeah, that’s it, Susan. Keep moving the goal posts. You’re foolin’ everybody.
McGoohan stands up in the raft holding a megaphone (?), and smarmily says that while he can’t see them, he knows they’re there, and he thanks them for their help in catching the hatchling. Cut to a shot of Baby in what looks like a bamboo cage on board the barge. How in the world did the soldiers build that so quickly?
A probably brief time later, S&G and literally sitting there moping. The movie must’ve sensed the dubious moral distinction between Susan and McGoohan, because the following exchange occurs:
George: They’re probably gonna dope her silly. Buncha grad students giving her a physical every ten minutes.
Susan: That’s what I was gonna do.
George: But she likes you.
Not good enough, movie. I like my personal physician, but he ain’t my favorite guy on earth during the hernia examination or the hemorrhoid examination, and doping me likely wouldn’t change my feeling about it too much.
The native Chief appears out of nowhere. After a bit of native talk that S&G don’t follow, Chief says, “Mokele-Mobembe.” S&G get excited and follow the Chief. He leads them to a river, where Kenge the pilot cheerfully tells that them they’re late, but he saw their dinosaur and they can “steal it real easy!” Mmm…with this many people being aware of the dinosaurs, I don’t see how it quite qualifies as a lost legend with a secret.
Cut to a…slightly higher-tech village, I guess. Mom and Baby are being prepped for transport. I might be mistaken, but it looks like the soldiers are building Mom’s transport container around her as she sits in…drydock, I suppose you’d say. There is a half-completed skeletal wooden framework in which Mom sits. This is pretty cool, because it shows that despite the ridiculous raft that can carry any weight, someone was at least trying to make the detail believable.
When the soldiers notice black smoke arising from behind one of the buildings. They all set off to put it out. It’s S&G setting fire to everything in sight. Black smoke implies and oil fire, but they setting fire to conventional Alpha stuff. **shrug** No prob. We get the standard schlock hide-behind-the-corner-and-everyone-runs-past-you bit, but here it’s acceptable because they’re not chasing George and don’t know he’s even there. They’re focused on the fire. There’s another shot of Susan hiding behind stuff as a few dozen civilian-looking people run towards the fire. Waitaminit, S&G are burning people’s homes down for this? Who am I supposed to be rooting for?
It seems the native tribe has decided to get in on the fun, as well. Chief gets the drop on a soldier and appropriates his automatic weapon. He fiddles with it, clearly not knowing how to work it. Susan pantomimes using the slide, Chief gets the idea, and fires off a clumsy round. At 1:20:05, we get the second excellent use of his funny-ass appearance. His eyes light up and he gives this big ol’ grin as if to say, “Weeelll now, this changes everything.” It’s only for a second or two, but it’s funnier than s**t. He improbably shoots a guard with a very very short burst, and the guard falls like he’s slipped on a banana peel.
Goofy chaos time! The tribe attacks the soldiers full-force, and the following happens:
- Chief proves to be supremely accurate with a weapon he’s never used before.
- The tribe doesn’t discriminate between military targets and civilian targets, as they tear up the fruit carts and everything.
- Kenge flies over the scene, dropping Molotov cocktails and having the time of his life.
- There is a kinda neat long shot of a soldier standing right next to a cocktail exploding and his arm catching fire. Strange, though: We see it in one unbroken cut, and the arm that catches fire is his left, although the explosion was on his right. Still, it looks pretty impressive.
- Chief is not only an impossibly good marksman, he’s also impossible difficult to shoot.
- A couple tribespeople do get shot, and that’s good to see (Dune, anyone?). One of them in particular screams in agony while covering his ears, just like the dude in Planet of the Apes.
This scene is less than two minutes long, but it’s cheesy fun enough that it feels more satisfying than that.
S&G get to the dinos, which have again been left unsupervised. Susan begins untying Mom. Baby’s cage has already been loaded into the back of a pickup truck, which McGoohan tries to escape in. George grapples with him for a bit, but McGoohan shakes him off and drives away. Meanwhile, Susan and the tribesmen have freed Mom, who clumsily stands up in the wooden framework and begins pursuit. Couple nice touches here, as Mom naturally would be clumsy standing up, both because she’s been drugged for so long, and she’s got all these long wooden bars around her. Also, a close-up of Mom’s head as she roars shows gashes ringing her neck from where the ropes were. Good stuff!
Mom plows through the village as villagers scatter in all directions. The soldiers are suddenly totally unable to hit the massive brontosaurus, even with a thrown grenade. Nigel tries to load a tranq dart, but Mom dislodges some power lines that land on him, and he gets electrocuted with cartoon electricity and a goofy look on his face. He even sticks his tongue out. God, if this wasn’t a semi-kids’ film, this would be a so-awesome rampage scene. When has Hollywood ever given a rampage scene in an African village rather than an American metropolis? This would’ve been neat. And relatively cheap, too. African village sets have gotta be cheaper to create than American city sets.
S&G have appropriated a motorcycle and revved it up. They take off in pursuit of the fleeing McGoohan.
I’ll post the conclusion tomorrow or Sunday.
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Edited by - Food on 04/25/2008 8:27:16 PM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 04/27/2008 : 6:11:25 PM
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Vroom!
Suddenly we get a burst of tackiness. At 1:23:16, there a shot of a panicked McGoohan in the truck watching the approach Mommasaur, and the matting is far more obvious than any previous mattes in the movie. Then, at 1:23:25, there’s a dubbing blooper. We can see George yell “Hold on!” to Susan over the roar of the motorcycle, but the dubbing sounds like he’s speaking to someone on the phone when someone else in the room is trying to get his attention. At 1:23:45, there’s more matte madness as a shot of S&G in the foreground chasing Mom and McGoohan looks like S&G are watching Infant: Secret of the Lost Legend at a drive-in with motorcycle accessibility. I’m serious, if I had the equipment and skill to post a still shot for you to see, I would right here. It looks awful!!! At 1:23:48, a similar shot of McGoohan in the foreground with Mom chasing after looks like he parked at the same drive-in but pointed the car away from the screen.
The drive out of the village is pretty unremarkable except that Mom is able to keep up with McGoohan. Granted, I can’t tell how fast he’s driving, so it’s no biggie. Mom is thwarted when she runs into someone’s home and keels over on her side, crushing the entire structure. This is a pretty cool-lookin’ shot!
Once out of the village, there’s about 30 seconds of chase, until S&G get alongside McGoohan, and George shouts at him to “Stop! Pull over!” Yeah, that’s gonna convince him, George. Susan grabs a hatchet from somewhere (?!?), and by “hatchet,” I mean it’s big enough to be halfway between a hatchet and full-blown ax. She shouts, “I’m warning you!” I cringed. That’s just painful to hear. She makes up for it by smashing the windshield, though. McGoohan’s truck goes flying off the road, doing a half-roll before coming to rest in the roadside shrubbery.
A rattled and mildly bloodied McGoohan pulls himself out of the cab and crawls to the motionless Baby. Believing that Baby is dead, McGoohan devastatedly mutters, “God…..oh God.” He hears a rumble of Mom approaching, then slowly looks up with a priceless “Oooohhhh f**k” look. He brings himself up to his full height and just stands there, like he’s ready to accept his punishment. Close-up of Mom’s open jaws approaching the camera, cut the S&G as they arrive, then a wide shot of Mom with a screaming McGoohan in its jaws. This is a way-cool shot, too. Not gruesome at all, just some blood in his midsection where Mom’s teeth have chomped down. Susan turn away in horror, then falls into George’s arms. George don’t mind, though. He keeps on lookin’ as Mom eventually drops the lifeless corpse to the ground.
S&G approach Baby and begin to get all morbid that he seems to be cold oatmeal. They retreat as Mom nears. In close-up, it looks like Mom whispers in Baby’s ear (“Wake up, kid. It’s time to go to school.”). Baby wakes up (reminds me of my favorite line from Godzilla 1985: “Damn you, you play possum!”), and S&G haul Baby to its feet. Uh, I’d leave well enough alone at this point. Mom just chomped one dude to death, and she’s an herbivore for chrissake. I’d take off and let Mom and Baby alone. But Mom doesn’t seem to mind. Dinosaurs can read Hollywood scripts as well, and can tell who the good guys are.
Mom and Baby rubs their heads against each other like cats, then take off into the wildnerness. As the final lines in the movie, Susan asks, “Just another legend?” George answers, “If we let it be.” I have no idea what in the world that means. George is a journalist (although at no point do we ever see him do anything journalistic like taking notes or making an audio dictation or taking pics or anything), so is he saying that he’s gonna reveal this story to masses? If so, then that’s both mean to Baby and Mom, and also redundant because it seems to me that this particularly legend has been seen by so many folks that any story of it would belong on Gabon Nightly News in its nightly “No F**kin’ Kiddin’” segment.
**shrug**
The final shot is a long shot of Baby and Mom swimming out into a river. It’s a nice shot.
Roll credits.They’re only about 3 minutes long, with nothing noteworthy, with one exception: The penultimate credit reads:
Producers extend their thanks to the Government and the people of the Ivory Coast for their cooperation during the making of this film.”
What, the government rates a capital G but the people don’t rate a capital P? And “Producers” instead of “The producers” of “The producers of this motion picture” makes me wonder if the movie isn’t saying that there are some producers who really do extend their thanks to the Gov. and [P]eeps of Ivory Coast, just not the producers of this particular film.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
This movie is just good solid silly fun. I really like it. It’s a shame there’s no commentary track; with every lousy movie ever made now designated as a “cult classic,” you can’t tell me that nobody involved in Baby wants to talk about it. Especially William Katt, as his career peaked with The Greatest American Hero, which wasn’t much of a hit in the first place.
Baby’s single biggest flaw is its uncertainty as to who it’s target audience is. The cutesiness and the domesticated-pet behavior of the title character indicate a kids’ audience, like a Disney film. The profanity and nudity indicate an adult audience. The threadbare plot indicates the beer-and-pretzels crowd. The he-wants-kids-she-doesn’t subplot indicates an adult audience, while the early termination of the subplot indicates that the movie wasn’t serious about it in the first place. The National Geographic-style nudity coupled with the extensive use of actual Ivory Coast location shooting indicate that the movie is taking itself seriously, while the solidiers-vs.-tribesman fight (which really doesn’t enter into anything beyond spectacle), indicates that silly fun was of top priority.
What’s different about this movie compared to other Africa-based movies that I’ve seen is the fact most such movies either open in, or introduce their main American character in, America. This also provides contrast between the urban modernized civilization he comes from with the backwoods primitive wilderness he finds himself in later. Not so with Baby The movie starts in sub-Saharan Africa and it stays there. The phone call between George and the unseen somebody on the other end is the closest we come to leaving the Dark Continent. I like it!
The blurb on the box about this being “a cross between Forty-Niners of the Lost Ark and E.T.” is half-accurate. The E.T. bit is accurate for the cutsiness and the story arc of frolicking with this new friend and saving him from a hodgepodge of authority figures only to say goodbye to him at the end of the movie. But the Lost Ark bit isn’t accurate at all: George never does anything adventure-serial heroic here. He doesn’t kick anyone’s asses, nor does Susan. They just tag along with Baby, freeze up when the baddies capture them, and run for it when something else saves them. So they’re not particularly exciting heroes. Similarly, McGoohan isn’t a particularly exciting villain. His “villainy” isn’t impossible to understand: He doesn’t want to kill the dinos any more than S&G do. He wants to do the same thing S&G wanted to: Study them in a controlled environment. I can’t dislike the guy.
With the heroes and villains unexciting, that leaves only the dinosaurs. Baby is either a diminutive cow or a large dog: Uber-cute and friendly to friends. This doesn’t match any impression of dinosaurs that 11-years-olds like me at the time had about dinosaurs. So Baby is less a dinosaur than an adopted pet that just happens to be a dinosaur. Mom and Pop are great, but they get limited time to shine. They both get a rampage scene, but Pop dies rather quickly and Mom spends half of her screentime drugged up.
Still, they are well-realized, their roars sound great (far far better than Godzilla movies), and I don’t feel that I, craving dinosaurs in a dinosaur movie, have been cheated.
BOTTOM LINE
It ain’t high art, and I wouldn’t recommend pairing it with Greystoke. But Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend is a fun good-time romp with enough élan to carry the day. For any occasion that requires a movie that a random collection of your friends can just kick back and have a good time with, I recommend it. I know this won’t be the last time I watch this movie.
End of dissection. Thank you.
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Edited by - Food on 04/27/2008 6:20:20 PM |
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Nlneff
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
USA
84 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2008 : 2:20:47 PM
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Great review of a underappreciated B movie.
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Pip
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 06/05/2008 : 01:03:30 AM
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"Pip, are you reading this? If you are, we could use your expertise. How realistic is this, that a larger-than-elephant-sized animal could crash out from a pair of tranq darts in 30 seconds?)"
They were right to aim for the central nervous system, but it is unlikely that the dart would very deeply perf hide like that. Also, this is presumably a cold blooded animal. That makes tranquilizers much less effective as the internal circulation is generally very much slower than a warm blooded and smaller animal. Plus, that's a mighty big animal they are bringing down.
Pip |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 06/05/2008 : 9:47:34 PM
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| Thank you kindly, Pip! :) |
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Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend (1985)
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