T-Rex Feature At Imax Needs A Little More Bite

An IMAX film that doesn’t take full advantage of its biggest asset, a screen that stands five stories tall and is 69 feet wide, is a waste of the technology.

It’s like a buying tickets for a roller coaster and finding yourself on a backyard rope swing.

That’s the feeling you get when watching “T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous,” the new film at Riverfront Park’s IMAX theater. The film promises a lot, yet it delivers very little.

IMAX films are all of a type. They deliver information, usually science-oriented, with thrills, usually the kind involving swooping helicopter shots that — experienced in front of that giant screen — induce nausea.

And “T-Rex,” at least on the surface, is no different. The conceit here is a more involved storyline.

Ally Hayden (Liz Stauber) is the daughter of paleontologist Donald Hayden (Peter Horton), a dinosaur hunter who is looking for remains of Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Unfortunately, Hayden considers his daughter too young to join the dig (which, we’re told, is on the Red Deer River of western Alberta). And since it’s apparent that mom and dad are separated (nothing is stated explicitly), Ally doesn’t get to spend as much time with dad as she wants.

So she spends her time working on a science project, specifically on the theory that links dinosaurs, even the giant T-Rex, with birds. And, of course, she fantasizes.

At least we think she fantasizes. Director Brett Leonard (“The Lawnmower Man”), working from a script by Andrew Gellis and Jeanne Rosenberg, spends much of his 45-minute film having Ally tramp through her father’s museum, apparently caught in some sort of time warp that has her not only meeting such pioneer scientists as Charles Knight but actually discovering (and saving) a T-Rex’s nest full of eggs.

The problem here is not the fantasy. It certainly isn’t the science imparted (though no one has ever proven that T-Rex laid eggs), nor is it the landscape explored. Even the characters, though the acting is only barely adequate, manage to hold our interest.

The big problem with “T-Rex” is that, despite all the ads featuring a giant Tyrannosaur with gleaming teeth, the film delivers way too little excitement. The digitally reproduced dinosaurs boast maybe five minutes of screen time total.

The result: “T-Rex” is a film that doesn’t really know what audience it wants to attract.

Adults will be bored, children will be disappointed and the very youngest likely will fall asleep.

But first they’re likely to ask, as one young boy did on Tuesday afternoon, “Where are the dinosaurs?”

`T-Rex: BACK TO THE CRETACEOUS’ *-1/2 Location: IMAX Credits: Directed by Brett Leonard, starring Peter Horton, Liz Stauber, Kari Coleman, Laurie Murdoch, Tuck Mulligan Running time: 45 minutes Rating: Not rated