Theodore Rex

One of these is an old, irrelevant relic. The other is a dinosaur.

I've plumbed a lot of depths, both personally and sexually, but this is far and away... just another one of them.
I really need a better hobby.

The Buddy Cop film. It's a formula we all know and love; a tried and true plot that has given us some great and memorable moments and some of Hollywood's most well known tropes. Dating as far back as 1949 with Kurosawa's Stray Dog, and brought to the western public with films like 1967's In the Heat of the Night, this genre has given us some of our favourite films; Beverly Hills Cop, Seven, Point Break and Die Hard with a Vengeance just to name a select few. It has, however, also given us a lot of shit ones too, such as Rush Hour, Marked for Death and The Glimmer Man... really anything with Steven Sea gal in it is probably on this end of the spectrum. I could spend a whole review just listing shitty buddy cop films. And probably will, some day. But for now, let's get a move on.

Whether bad or good it's been a popular road for many writers, actors and directors to take to stardom. We've seen so many wacky combinations matched up together that very little now would probably surprise us. We've seen old career cop teamed with street-wise rookie. We've seen by-the-book cop partnered with a hot-headed stud. Cop and ex-con. White cop and black cop. Cop and child who wants to be a cop. Cop and actor. Cop and dog. Cop and other more different cop. Cop and that cop's mum. We've seen it all, literally too many to name. We've just written 'cop' on the whiteboard and filled a hat with other nouns and are now just connecting these two - seemingly unrelated - dots. Cop and a banana. Cop and an old newspaper. Cop and car... oh wait, we've done that.

My point is that by now we're just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. It's not about the story anymore, just how different can we make our two protagonists. There was a time when two white, middle-aged cops with slightly differing ideals was enough for us. Then we needed something a bit more shocking to lure us to the cinemas. Cue the addition of a black guy. Gadzooks, the zaniness of it all. I mean, a black man working with the police? What will they think of next? I'll tell you what. It was dogs; because the stakes always needed to be higher, the zaniness more zany - reaching Billy Zane levels of zaniness - which is, as a connoisseur will tell you, the most zany.

So, what is more shocking than a cop with a car, or a dog, or a car-dog, or a dog with bees in its mouth so when it barks it shoots bees at you? Apparently it's dinosaurs. Ha, the shit you could get away with in the 90's. And because that wasn't enough to sell the movie by itself, we get a black cop with the dinosaur. And it's a black woman cop. And she's some kind of cyborg. And it's Whoopi Goldberg.

Fuck.

So, I've gone on for a bit about the history of buddy cop films, so let's get down to this one. It's terrible. Review over. Pinch it off, wipe and get back to work.

If only it were that simple.

So the movie begins with a black and white sequence where a dinosaur is being chased by the winner of the 1978 Lance Henriksen look-alike contest, who unleashes a butterfly which lands on the dinosaur and explodes. Really. Like I would waste my time making that up. Then we find out it was all just a dream and all originality flies out of the window along with my hope and my will to live.

After that it's pretty much all downhill. The story revolves around a scientist who is building a cryogenic arc to save endangered species and revive extinct ones, but is actually trying to cause another ice age to destroy mankind. The dynamic duo of Whoopi and Co. take down this evil plan and save the day, because originality is a dangerous concept in Hollywood. Everything else is just tired jokes, dated references and filler. Honestly the best part of this movie was watching the puppet's wonky eyes attempt to focus on the actor talking to it. It was like watching Michael J Fox try to sit for a still life painting class.

This was undoubtedly one of the shittiest, most poorly written, badly acted and all together most lazily done movies I have ever watched. I'd rather order a salad at a steak house than watch it again. I'd rather go to church.

I'd rather get bitten by a mosquito while at a support meeting for people with AIDS.