Pterodactyl

"Pterodactyl" is a hilariously bird-brained movie from the Czech Republic starring Cameron Daddo as Professor Michael Lovecraft, and Coolio as Captain Bergen, the commander of a crack special forces unit. The film opens with Daddo and some students going to Mount Ararat in Turkey to look for archaeological specimens unearthed by a recent volcanic eruption. In a parallel plot (that feels like a parallel universe), Coolio is leading his crack Army team on the Turkish-Armenian border in a convoluted backstory about ridding the region of terrorist thugs. Before you go any further, here is a key question to reflect on: is it a bad sign that Coolio demonstrates more acting talent than the remainder of the cast combined?The Pterodactyls make their opening move against the science expedition's Jeep, taking a couple of students along the way, and leading to an otherworldly four-way brawl that boils down (roughly) to the scientists versus the terrorists versus the Army versus the pterodactyls. Daddo is thrilled by the scientific find, and the whole anthropology expedition breathes a sigh of relief after having been rescued by the pterodactyls (sort of.) The scientist and Army contingents join up, and from the small world department, it turns out that Coolio knows Kate (Amy Sloan), Daddo's former student and would-be main squeeze's dad from the Army. Mercifully, the most beautiful but annoying character in the film, Angie (Mircea Monroe) dies from pterodactyl-inflicted wounds, vastly improving the watchability of the film, if too late.Before long Kate gets captured by the pterodactyl and is taken to the nest where there are numerous hatching pterodactyls pecking at her, leading to possibly the only flying tethered sheep rescue scene in film history, and, unfortunately, some horrible romantic dialogue between Daddo and Sloan on the radio. Also in the nest, the lone surviving anarchist terrorist gets fed to the baby pterodactyls in the film's most poignant scene. Intermittently a soldier dies, and their melodramatic exits are hammy in the extreme, pointing to more of a directorial and script problem than basic thespian issues: all the soldiers die utterly ridiculous deaths with big monologues and the whole nine yards. This can really try your patience.A brave ordnance expert saves the day, setting the scene for the big showdown of the alpha male pterodactyl versus Coolio, Daddo, and Sloan, which occurs in an expansive open field (which would not be my choice for a place to engage an aerial war lizard.) I will not reveal Coolio's plan to destroy the pterodactyl, but I will nominate it for most ridiculous plan in movie history involving surface-to-air missiles. Obviously love conquers all, with Daddo and Sloan officially becoming an item, while the film opportunistically sets up for a sequel. In the final shot there is a long shot zooming to a cave teeming with hundreds of pterodactyl eggs, implying the peril is obviously not over. In an amusing twist, though, the final shot of the film is of a Tyrannosaurus rex rampaging through the cave destroying the pterodactyl eggs, which makes me wonder if we should therefore see the T. rex as the real hero of the movie.The film gets three stars for hilarity. The script is beyond dreadful, and regardless of the talent base of the actors, this couldn't possibly be a "good" movie. The plot of the film is likewise ridiculous, but that's pretty much guaranteed in a movie of this type, but the bizarre plotlines here don't intersect well at all (the whole Armenian terrorist angle went nowhere, save for feeding baby war lizards.) The cinematography is quite decent for a film of this budget, but the CGI pterodactyls were less than visually stunning to say the least. "Pterodactyl" is a completely outlandish monster movie, and is quite entertaining as a fun movie so bad it's good. I recommend it to fans of cheesy science fiction films everywhere.

A jerk professor (Cameron Daddo) reluctantly leads an "extra credit" expedition of nitwit students into the wilds of Turkey while American soldiers are stalking a terrorist leader in the same area. All three groups run into the pterodactyls at roughly the same time, providing the dinosaurs with a much needed snack.In this movie, everyone bitches and moans; no one appears to be having fun before or after the pterodactyls attack. Needless to say, after the pterodactyls' first appearance, everyone runs and screams and shoots at anything that flies; some lose their head(s) in the bargain. The jerk teacher eventually snaps out of his funk in time to launch a rescue mission of a student he's entirely too chummy with. If you were to vote, he would definitely win `worst teacher' ever on the `worst field trip' imaginable. (The survival tally in these types of movies is never negotiable; very few if any are expected to stay alive, never mind smile by the time it ends.)There is a certain amount of fun in the idea of trying to survive ongoing pterodactyls attacks. For the pterodactyls it was like having a catered affair; what a lovely buffet, I'll take two of everything.......on the wing..........to go. I liked this movie immensely because it is uncompromisingly stupid on all fronts. The dialog is incredibly hokey, the acting is marginal, the action predictable. The only reason I really-really liked this movie was because the monsters are pterodactyls (they rarely get featured in dinosaur flicks). If anything, pterodactyls are always relegated to the background, lucky if they just get to fly by in a scene. Finally, they are the stars.........and some saps are shooting at them! How fair is that! Mistreated in their own movie.

An American scientist and his students are in Turkey to look for fossils on a mountain. They are warned by the government that there are dangerous men in the wilds but they decide to go ahead. Enter an American military team looking for a renegade and you have the rest of the cast. Unfortunately, a recent earthquake has unearthed some pterodactyl eggs that then hatched. The are around the mountain is now the feeding ground for large numbers of these flying predators.First one group and then the other runs afoul of the hungry beasts. As their numbers dwindle, it becomes obvious that the only way any of them are getting away safely is to try and eliminate the beasts. But is scientific knowledge and some minor military hardware enough to take on creatures that have survived the way these have? Well, they have no choice but to try.I really did not expect a lot of this movie so I was surprised. We see the creatures almost from the start and we see a lot of them. If you add up the screen time for each individual creature it would probably be five times the length of the movie. The effects are pretty good although some of the injuries are rather campy. The characters are somewhat standard for this type of film but a few twists are added to keep them from being stale. All in all this one was pretty good. Check it out.

I love "old time" Sci Fi movies and this is a great one. A group of paleotology students are amazing to discover real, life pterodactyls! No one believes the students though, not even their professors. The usual mayhem ensues. Thrown into the mix is a group of Seals who have snatched a terrorist, all who end up attempting to survive the onslaught of the pterodactyls. Bows are used, guns are used, as are missile launchers. Will they succeed? Who will die? Who will survive? Good, old time style movie, just like the ones I grew up with. (The Blob, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Forbidden Planet et al.) And decent reproductions of pterodactyls themselves. Loads of fun for a rainy -- or below zero winter as where I live. Enjoy!!!

It's been interesting revisiting this movie. When I first saw it, I was considerably younger and watching it primarily for kill scenes and Pterosaur attacks and whatnot. More recently I watched it focusing on story quality.This movie is one of those movies where the title threat appears out of nowhere with no real explanation; something that causes me to think of older b-movies like "The Giant Gila Monster". But I guess in the context of movies like this an explanation isn't really necessary.Like many Sci-Fi Channel movies there's human villains, but this time the main villain seems more like a plot point than a constant antagonist; as a result there's less of the stupidity Sci-Fi Channel movie villains often cause.Animal attack sequences in and of themselves get repetitive. The wide action shots where people are shooting at circling Pterosaurs, getting attacked by swooping Pterosaurs, etc. are a lot better than the close-up Pterosaur shots, which at the very least aren't bad by themselves.As for the protagonists, there are cliched characters and a few generic fodder guys with no personality to speak of but there are still some decent characters. Coolio's performance here was much better than I expected.

The dvd got delivered within the time limit which is OK. The story in the film doesn't add up to my expatations. The film is supposedly taking place in Turkey, but if you look closely you will notice that you in an eastern mideuropean state, probably The Czeck republic. Perhaps the story writers should have consulted the producers of Jurassic Park before making this film. This film is very bad quality. It could have been good, but ended up as a low quality film production. Hollywood should have quality control on films like this one. I do not recoomend buying this dvd.

I knew how bad this film was before I bought it, and gave it to a friend for a gag present! It has comic appeal, which may or may not have been intended. It was actually better than I expected, better at least than Titanic 2 for example, but still awful. If you're looking for a good film don't buy this. If you're patient and/or looking for something to laugh at, think about it.

Regardless of what the film is like, it was within the specified time and no issues with quality

内容はプテラノドンという翼竜がトルコで科学調査隊とテロ対策部隊を襲うというもの。手っ取り早く言うと､昔の東宝映画「空の大怪獣ラドン」と「サンダ対ガイラ」を合わせたような内容、と言えば聞こえは良いけど、内容はそんな大それたものではない。話は森の中で完結します。　実際のプテラノドンは、この映画のような動きはしないので、名前を借りた別のクリーチャーと考えれば、それはそれで面白い。アメリカのテロ対策部隊の行動は、ツッコミどころ満載の変な小隊だが、一応は活躍して「ああやっぱり」というエンディングへ導きます。このような映画は６０～７０年代ならそここそ受けたのでしょうが、現在の目の肥えたファンには物足りないかもしれません。見所は、スプラッターを前面に押し出した怪獣映画というところでしょう。まあワンコインで済む映画なので、過度な期待をしないように。