Anonymous Rex | 
| Director: Julian Jarrold
Actors: Sam Trammell, Daniel Baldwin, Stephanie Lemelin, Tamara Gorski, Alan Van Sprang
Studio: Allumination
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $0.95
You Save: $14.03 (94%)
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Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 24118
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Genre: none
Rating: Unrated
ESRB: Teen
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 120 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: ARDDAFW27375D
UPC: 783722737521
EAN: 0783722737521
ASIN: B000FS9FFS
Theatrical Release Date: November 19, 2004
Release Date: August 29, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Peace Arch Home Entertain Release Date: 03/11/2008 Run time: 90 minutes
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| Customer Reviews:
 An Infantile Tour de FArce! April 5, 2008
Whatsit2u (Everywhere)
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
AR's sound-track should be set to Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Chaingin'":
"Come gather 'round idiots wherever you roam...
and admit that your brains are now turning to foam!"
In all fairness: IF you are between 18-25 going on 12, IF you can bear to pull your withering brain away from the Play Station mom 'n' pop got you last X-mas for a bit, and IF you are a classic under-achiever whose main ambition in life is to be a burden on society...then this cinematic garbage is right up your alley! Go for it...LOL! ;~))
 It aint the book , but it IS worth watching February 13, 2008
Pope Cahbet (Memphis, TN United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Having only read the first book in the Eric Garcia trilogy (Anonymous, Casual and Hot & Sweaty - great titles when accompanied by Rex), I cannot say how this tracks against the other 2 books, but it definitely is NOT the plot of the first book. Also, some of the supporting characters are different and the subplots are twisted around a good bit. So, if you liked the book, do not watch this expecting a faithful rendering into cinema.
Instead, think of it as inspired by the book(s) and watch it for the sheer goofy fun of it. Sure, some of the gimmicks are pretty, well, gimmicky, but that just makes it more enjoyable, IMHO. Sci-Fi Channel just does not have the budget to make a first-rate movie, but this is one heck of a second-rater!
In short, it aint the book, but it IS worth watching.
 Quirky, Sly, And Actually Works October 2, 2006
K. Fontenot (The Bayou State)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I'll admit that when I first saw this film promoted on the SciFi channel a couple of years ago, I laughed it off as just another bad SciFi channel flick. Let's be honest here, dinosaurs attempting to live amongst humans by disguising themselves to look like humans sounds pretty silly. Dinosaurs, or at least the popular ones, are supposed to be these large, man-eating monsters. The vegetarian dinosaurs, like the stegosaurus and the triceratops, have been built up as gentle giants by pop culture.
In this story, however, the dinosaurs are private investigators, doctors, lawyers, eco-warriors, Faye Dunaway, Isaac Hayes--you name it. They've surpassed the "apes" in a number of categories, including, as far as this story is concerned, forensics. A murder occurs that directly affects Vincent Rubio (Sam Trammell), a dino who's having an image problem. His P.I. buddy, gamely played by Daniel Baldwin, has a couple of problems of his own. One involves a potential girlfriend and the other involves his daughter. As the dino duo begin to break down the murder mystery, they uncover the plot of a renegade dinosaur to destroy the human race and once again let the lizards rule the Earth.
It's all done with tongue-in-cheek attitude and plenty of sarcastic humor. Unlike another reviewer, I found this film to be quite funny. It's not dark at all, unless you count the bits where the lighting is toned down to hide the obvious CGI shortcomings. The story is what moves this film along, not the special FX. I don't really care how bad the CGI is if the story is strong enough to overcome it.
I've never read any of the books. In fact, until I saw this movie, I didn't even know the books existed. Perhaps I'll check them out in the future. Until then, I'll gladly say that this film is a decent flick to watch on a rainy afternoon. It won't advance you intellectually, but it will pass a good ninety minutes without leaving you feeling cheated.
Rent this one today if you want an offbeat take on a murder mystery. It's actually a pretty good flick sprinkled with a little silliness and attitude. Mildly recommended.
Skip the movie and read the books. September 10, 2006
James L. Steele (Delaware, USA)
3 out of 10 found this review helpful
The premise: dinosaurs faked their extinction and are living among us in human disguises.
Okay, with that out of the way, the movie is called Anonymous Rex, but the plot comes from Casual Rex, the second novel in the series. Even then it's just the basic idea. It's not based on the book, it only vaguely resembles the idea of a cult of dinosaurs who want to shed their human disguises and come out of hiding by revolting against the human race. This makes the movie easier to judge in its own right because even someone who's read the books won't be too biased. What we have is, well, made for TV.
Budget. As described in the books, the CGI required to make these dinosaurs come to life (like stepping into and out of latex human disguises) would be incredibly complicated and expensive. It's barely imaginable when reading the books, think of the difficulty making it believable in a movie! So the filmmakers took the expected shortcut by changing the latex guises to digital holograms. This way they only had to make CGI dino-heads and paste them on top of the actor's bodies. It's very cheap and cowardly. We only get to see Vincent's dino-head for a grand total of 10 seconds spread out over the course of the whole movie and he doesn't even look like a raptor! He's a generic reptile-like-thingy with a stubby snout. Is that supposed to be a dinosaur?! It doesn't help the premise, it undermines it! Furthermore, Ernie's head and claws are both seen once (3 seconds each). Young Vincent is seen only for a few seconds in a flashback. Altogether, there are only three dinosaur heads in the whole movie standing in for the entire sub-population. It's corny. Reminds me of the original Star Trek series: "Yes, we *are* aliens. We've all taken on human form for no apparent reason, but we ARE powerful aliens and in our natural forms we are multi-limbed and have three heads, but for reasons NOT related to show budget whatsoever we have taken on human form and you should revere us anyway." There was a commercial for Gatorade in the mid-90s that showed more raptor than this (and it actually looked like a raptor). This is a movie! Why make it if you're not going to show us anything?!
Tone. The movie is very dark and humorless, unlike the books which are light and full of sarcastic humor. As usual the movie keeps everything in the dark so it doesn't look so absurd when seen. It took itself too seriously. It's more like an episode of Law and Order than anything Eric Garcia wrote: emotionless, just-the-facts, and contrived.
Time. 90 minutes was not enough time to build a unique world, tell a mind-blowing mystery, and add depth to the characters at the same time. You'd think that if the filmmakers weren't going to show us the dinos they'd at least make the mystery engaging, right? There is barely any mystery. Our private-eyes are faced with a question and then in the next scene they answer it. There is no buildup or suspense. The mystery and the solution to it are spelled out (not presented) before the first hour. Without the dinosaurs it's just a generic detective story. Nothing special about it at all.
At the same time the movie tries to show some kind of dilemma for Vincent, that he almost joins the cult, but it's glazed over so quickly that there is nothing to digest. There's no time to develop the characters or give weight to the events, so the actors only needed to use two emotions throughout the whole movie (straight-faced and angry). I don't blame the actors, I blame the script and the TV limits. No time for depth. No time for story. No budget for visuals. No room for humor.
Now, speaking as a fan of the books, I notice the following: In the book Ernie does not have a daughter, he is divorced from his wife, and he is not a triceratops. Why change all that here? It didn't add anything consequential to the movie except a damsel in distress, a single father the audience can better identify with, and a species the audience will recognize. Wait...never mind.
The book has dinosaurs out of their disguises, walking around, getting into bloody fights, talking to each other as dinosaurs, even having sex as dinosaurs! There are mansions, a private island, huge crowds of dinosaurs. The climax of the book is big. Very big. Absurdly big and tongue-and-cheek hilarious as the crowd of celebrity look-alike cross-dressers storms in and fights the cultists.
The movie? It had the budget for three dinosaur heads (20 seconds total), two hands (5 seconds), flickering holographic disguises, two unused rubber suits made to look like the actors, half a dilophosaurus in a darkened room, and Young Vincent (8 seconds). It all builds to the movie's climax: Vincent takes five seconds to decide *not* to open a door. Oh... The suspense... That was it?! That was the end?! That was final confrontation?! Yeah, it's a made-for-TV movie and we're supposed to keep our expectations low, but I had hoped for something better.
They did do a few things right. Conveying the sense of smell with visual cues was well-done. Ernie was brilliantly cast. He was just as I pictured him. And the idea that all dinosaurs have this desire to revolt against the human race is an interesting twist (even though the books show the opposite attitude). I'd like to see how this idea pans out...but of course if this becomes a TV series it will have an even lower budget and we won't see *that* either.
The movie is pedestrian, cheap, stiff and humorless compared to the story Eric Garcia wrote. All the changes to the story were the result of low budget. Again, why did they bother to make it if they weren't going to show us any dinosaurs? Why couldn't it have been a real movie with an actual budget and with more time to put some depth into the characters so it didn't come across as the first episode of yet another generic TV crime series? That's all this is. "Anonymous Rex" could've been special, but because of budget it got downsized to a "Law and Order" clone.
Skip the movie. Read the books. All of them. Hollywood is still limited by budget but books can do anything.
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