YONGGARY

Dr. Campbell, an expert archaeologist, discovers an underground quarry that houses the skeleton of a mastodonic dinosaur and decides to have the skeleton excavated for fame and money. At the same time, an alien spaceship prepares to invade Earth and to completely eliminate the human race from the planet, they bring the giant dinosaur back to life so that it can exterminate all humans. But Dr. Hughes, along with the young archaeologist Holly Davis and the massive help of the army, prepares to face the enormous dinosaur that threatens New York to prevent the aliens from invading the planet Earth. There are two simple categories in which films can be divided: there are the "beautiful films" and the "ugly films". Two further categories are also found within the "ugly films" category: there are indeed those ugly films that are aware of being so or, at least, are aware of being low-level films; most of the time they appear quite ironic, do not take themselves seriously so that they manage to touch the feelings of the viewer leading them to feel a certain compassion for the horrible film just seen. Then there is another type of "ugly films", namely those really horrible, poorly thought out and poorly made films, that achieve an obscene result but that, despite everything, appear annoyingly pretentious and arrogant, trying in every way to pass themselves off as blockbusters. Ecco, "Reptilian" belongs precisely to this second species of "ugly films". Miserably released during the year 2000 and distributed by Columbia Tristar for the home video market only, but passed completely unnoticed even in video stores, this film - which is inspired by an old monster movie from 1967 titled "Yonggary" - is of disarming ugliness as it tries in every way to pass off a childish thing for a Hollywood blockbuster (but it is a co-production with South Korea!) with lots of special effects and really little brain. The story is very messy: archaeologists, scientists, giant dinosaurs, the army, aliens and even space monsters... in short, in this film they tried to include absolutely everything, but in the worst way! To a simply absurd story, which tries to mix the plot of "Godzilla" with that of "Independence Day", participates a screenplay that seems written by a child (even the science fiction speeches are of a unique banality). The direction is definitely anonymous, entrusted to a certain Hyung R. Shim ("Dragon Wars"), who also decides to produce the film himself. The actors are at the limits of decency, unknown, incompetent and terribly unpleasant; the only known face is that of Harrison Young ("Crocodile", "The House of 1000 Corpses") in the role of Dr. Hughes. Absolutely to be noted are the disastrous special effects and the horrible computer graphics used: the dinosaur, in fact, is not only ridiculous aesthetically (it seems to come out of the worst Kaiju eiga you can imagine) but is made with such primitive and rough digital that it makes your skin crawl; but despite this it is shown continuously and in all its "splendor". Not to mention the ending... the viewer will be forced to endure a ridiculous "clash of titans", with monsters at the limits of decency that fight among the buildings of New York. Anyway, since I don't want to dwell too much on this obscenity of a film to avoid giving it more importance than it deserves, I cut to the chase and hurry to conclude. "Reptilian" is really a bad film, a film so small but with blockbuster ambitions that it almost makes you feel sorry.. Absolutely to be avoided!