Wordiezett So much average

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

GL84 Arriving in Mexico in 1521, a group of Spanish conquistadors are captured by the Aztec natives and offered their freedom in exchange to kill a giant dinosaur plaguing their community and try to hunt it down in order to finally leave.This was a rather fun and enjoyable creature feature. Among the better factors here is the fact that it plays with history, since there's an actual amount of history attempted here. It plays enough with it to feel true to what happened while also incorporating enough of actual history, namely the inclusion of Cortez, the Spaniard conquest of Aztec-led Mexico and much more here that come from actual history give it enough to be rather new and unique. The inclusion of the dinosaur in that story is great, as it allows for a readily available amount of suspense into an action film, and the fact that it remains a part of the story for a while is what really helps this since the beginning is about the exploration of the culture, then about the dinosaur for the rest of the film with limited interruptions. That also means that the creature is perceived as a threat, and really plays up to that nicely, with many encounters with the creature to generate action and excitement. The first encounter in the jungle, the battle with it deep in the ravine and the assault in the surf on the beach are really great and full of action coupled with some fantastic encounters to further the human storyline and this one gets interesting all the time. This continuous amount of action also comes with what is the last plus here as all the encounters between the two stories leads to some great kills, and the blood and gore in here doesn't disappoint, as this one here has some really nice points to it while there wasn't a whole lot of flaws. The biggest issue here is the same one that is customary in these films, the CGI on display is just atrocious and never once looks anything close to realistic. Besides it looking incredibly phony, there are also times where it's out-of-scale to the environment and there's a sense that it is never there interacting amongst the group. The scenes of it stalking the soldiers through the jungle are fine, but by making the several scenes of it really out-of-scale, there's no way around how fake it was. That also applies to the gore, which is never realistic either and is plainly obvious as well. The other flaw in this is that there's nothing on the dinosaur's origins. It's mentioned that there was a family that had died out, leaving the ones here as the last survivors, but nothing is mentioned about how they stayed alive to begin with. Even a hokey legend about them would've worked here, which would've been fine over what's given here as nothing is definitely not appreciated. Otherwise, these here are the film's flaws.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity.

drystyx A very clever movie, using the old style movie plot, that the writer and director team very subtly, and very craftily, made their point.The movie is an old style Science Fiction adventure. Cortez leads six men on an expedition into the Aztec world. Cortez is a good choice, because he is known as one of the less ruthless, but still successful conquistadors. He certainly had more civility than Pizarro.Along the way, they meet a tribe, and two T Rexes. They are out for conquest, so they decide they will conquer the tribe instead of the T Rexes.But the tribe gets the better of them, and a priest intervenes on their behalf. It isn't unusual for a Spaniard to be stranded or shipwrecked near a coastal community, and such was the case for this priest, who was deemed interesting enough by the tribe to take in, and he taught them the language of Cortez.The characters are very real and identifiable. You genuinely care about them. It is well written and directed. The T Rexes lumber, as some scientists still believe. It is only recently that some scientists claim that rexes were speedy, but these are scientists just trying to get their names into print. Good Science dictates that it takes an incredible amount of energy to give speed to that weight. It's like trying to motor a two ton truck as opposed to a motorcycle. The lumbering T Rex still makes more sense.The characters are well done. Cortez is much like the leader of the treasure seekers in "The Jungle Book", the one with Sabu in it. He is a decent man, who cares about other people, and has humanity, but still wants the treasure. The priest is a very three dimensional character. The romantic two leads are also believable, especially for the times, since they have never seen movies, and don't know what a modern character is supposed to be like. They behave much as you would find credible for the times.But the chief point of the movie is that it attacks all other horror and Science Fiction movies in a very subtle way. It comes with the idea in the title I gave this, and I wouldn't want to spoil it. Nearly all horror and Science Fiction movies made in the last forty years indicate that some characters are "divinely" above any physical weakness, and that if you're evil enough, you cannot become weak. This movie cleverly attacks that notion.

Phillemos Take a SciFi Original Movie and mix in a little alternative/revisionist history, and you get "Aztec Rex." Apparently Hernand Cortes, before conquering the Aztec empire, had to first conquer a Tyrannosaurus Rex and her mate. That's the thrust of this movie. Given the plot it could have really sucked; the fact that it only kind of sucked is a tip of the cap to the writers. There are a few problems. For starters, Cortes is played by Ian Ziering. Even with a black wig, Ziering as Cortes is about as convincing as Axl Rose playing Gandhi. And though Cortes conquers the indigenous peoples of Mexico, the Aztecs here seem to be played by an all-Hawaiian ensemble. Casting aside, the T-Rex(es) look reasonably good, though every time one of them gets shot it just oozed CGI. And they die too easily; I suppose if a T-Rex were around in real life they probably could be felled or at least wounded by some rather rudimentary, 16th-century weaponry. But it takes something away from the movie. There are also some graphic T-Rex-swallowing-human scenes, which is surprising, but in this context I thought they worked OK. There's plenty of action, and the whole colonization angle is prevalent throughout but doesn't overwhelm the dinosaur angle, unlike the other recent SciFi Original dinosaur movie "Warbirds." Overall, a mediocre (but decent by SciFi Original standards) movie that rates a modest 4.

bkoganbing I'll bet none of you knew that the famous Conquistador Hernando Cortes made a preliminary scouting expedition to Mexico before taking on the Aztecs. Good thing he did because he would never have known about those T Rexs that inhabited one particular valley where the locals revered them as gods.That was understandable. What wasn't was the casting of blue eyed Ian Ziering as Cortes. Even with the blond hair made famous in Beverly Hills 90210 dyed black, Ian looked positively ridiculous. At least he made no attempt at a Spanish accent.The real hero of Tyrannosaurus Azteca is Marco Sanchez also late of a television series with a semi-recurring role in Walker Texas Ranger as Detective Sandoval of the Dallas PD. He finds true love with an Aztec princess and life would be just perfect if it wasn't for those pesky prehistoric beasts the natives worship.Tyrannosaurus Azteca looks like they used some outtakes from the famous Sid&Marty Krofft series the Land of the Lost. All that was needed was some Sleestak to appear.If you're interested in finding out about this reconnoitering expedition that didn't quite make the history books by all means check out Tyrannosaurus Azteca. Then try and sit through it with a straight face.