Anonymous Rex (2004) Online

The Sci Fi channel puts out a lot of TV movies... many of them are dreaded crap. After seeing this, however, I was rather surprised. This movie wasn't bad at all.

Summary: Dinosaurs didn't all die out after a huge meteor hit the earth. Humans did take over the world (as we all know) and dinosaurs had to adapt. It's now modern day and dinos use sophisticated disguises to look like people and live secretly among us. A sub-society of these dinos wants to start a conflict with humanity because they think that they shouldn't be living like people and that in the long run they can take over the world for the better. A dino detective guy (the main hero and narrator) who has mixed feeling about this issue investigates stuff, and ultimately makes some pretty grand decisions. (an interesting story, I hear there's a book like this)

Good Things: The story is quite intriguing. The special effects look pretty good, and they are not used often (this is important or it ruins a film). The acting is decent, too. The film is edited incredibly well: The way visuals and sounds are shuffled and put together at times gives the film a real erie/awesome feel (a 'Fight Club' kinda weird I'd say).

Not So Good: There's some loose ends, some implausible stuff (but hey, its a science fiction movie..), and a rather strange ending. Nothing that bad though.

Of course someone is sure to badmouth this movie and call it complete garbage. That's their right... but I invite them to see Sci Fi's 'Raptor Island'. THAT movie, my friends, is the utter crap. It deserves something like a 2 out of 100. Bad story, bad acting, horrid special effects, all around awful. You might not be able to watch it to the end. THEN compare it to this... you'll be amazed. So please don't compare this to The Matrix or Saving Private Ryan: don't forget that it's a TV movie.

So... if you're sitting around at home and you want to see an interesting and entertaining little TV movie, give this a shot. It's one of the few rare Sci Fi movies worth watching.

Looked like it might be a fun scifi-monster movie—mutated dinosaurs living among humans AS humans? Nice spooky little shot of a normal-looking guy walking along, close up on his face, and one eye turns all yellow and feral with vertical pupil, then he walks on, looking just like everyone else. Fun stuff.

But guess what? The story is being told by the monster. How's that grab ya? In flashbacks. And not only that, before you can decide this is too crazy for words, the movie starts jabbing a little bit at itself. It's funny. The "dinos" get high on ordinary spices, like basil and rosemary and thyme. Shades of Alien Nation slags getting pie-eyed on sour milk, but why not? And guess what else. The dinos aren't as bad as all that. They have families and jobs and friends and species-specific quirks (everybody knows that triceratops are herd beings and like to have lunch in groups) and—how timely can we get?—radicals who don't like being made to fit in for the sake of survival and would like to let dinos be dinos. That is to say killer carnivores. The top of the food chain. Thus the central conflict of the movie. There are also some pleas for toleration of differences that might strike some as heavy-handed, but actually they didn't do a bad job of showing how painful it can be to spend a lifetime "passing," or living in the saurian version of the closet, which used to involve rubber disguises which evolved into 21-century hologram-creating electronics.

They touched a lot of bases in this movie, kept it moving, kept the characters interesting and more than one-dimensional, and took themselves just seriously enough to give you something to think about. And then there was the secret of the big bad private eye's daughter… but that would require a spoiler alert.

Dinos. You gotta love 'em, claws and all. They're tough, they're smart, they're adaptable, and mostly don't act like they should all be deported to Jurassic Park. But still, would you want your daughter to marry one? Maybe the moral was We aren't like you, and maybe we aren't as benign as we'd like you to believe, but we aren't as bad as your worst nightmares about us either. We are what we are, but you'll never know what that is as long as we have to pretend to be what you are. That isn't an abstraction for a lot of people living on the planet right now, it's just what they have to deal with. Ask anyone in Michigan who has to live with the consequences of Proposal Two.

But I don't want to end on a surly note. It was a pretty good movie, if a bit hard to categorize. It had action, love, murder, intrigue, food for thought, even comedy. Anonymous Rex. Shoulda known from the title.

It's a made-for-TV movie so don't expect too much, but I'd have to say that this was a fairly enjoyable way to pass time. The effects are pretty decent and the plot was quite a hook, if somewhat predictable.

The acting here is pretty decent. (Speaking of acting, I couldn't help but notice the striking resemblance between Stephanie Nicole Lemelin and Kirsten Storms.) Sam Trammell was a little wooden, but he's decent overall. Daniel Baldwin, doing his last name justice, did an admirable job with the character he was given, but even here, there's no spark. There's not a single standout performance to be found in this entire flick, but no one was truly horrible, either. As a whole, an above average performance by the entire cast.

The plot, based on a book I've yet read, is pretty interesting, though expository information was in short supply. The premise here is that dinosaurs survived and flourish among humans by subjugating their 'true nature' to human customs. The 'villains' are a group of cult-like dinosaurs who seek to destroy this peaceful coexistence; their argument being that one shouldn't have to subjugate one's own nature in order to live and that their lives are basically lies. I put villains in quotes because there exist an underlying message that the movie attempted to pose, though it obviously wasn't successful because I obviously didn't get enough of the message to be able to articulate it into words.

Overall, an admirable 6/10 stars – worthy of watching, above average but mostly forgettable.

What a find for a fun sci fi flick! If it ain't a cult classic, it should be. Engaging acting, really well-written film noir spoof. We couldn't stop chuckling - all the while enjoying the sci fi plot. Looked as fun to make as it was to watch - I'd make it a must for a film class. Loved the small but effective special effects - no expensive whammies - and the movie did not suffer a bit for it. Same with locations - what a great example of a good sci fi movie, fun as all get-out, without having to be a mega-bucks extravaganza. Loved the casting, and was fun to see Faye Dunaway flicking a reptilian tongue at the audience. Fine ensemble acting. For me, the humorous, well-written script was the gem of the movie.

I expected this to be one of those B-movies made with a big heart and the glint in the eye; silly but enjoyable. However, I think this is above B-level. It's actually a decent sci-fi action.

The story - dinosaurs surviving and hiding among humans (especially since they were killed off as dragons in medieval times), and now getting quite tired of always having to pretend to be something they're not - is rather interesting. The special effects aren't state of the art, but they're not bad.

It's not great, but it's good, enjoyable and made with humour. All in all, very watchable!

I've read the comments prior to mine (7 or 8 as of this writing). I think some folks put a little too much expectation into these things. This is a SciFi channel effort. They don't get many viewers, so they can't charge much for commercials, so they can't pay much to film an original movie. Question: If any of you dissenters think you can do better, then why don't you have a basic cable channel of your own? Answer: You can't do better.

OK, they used cheap, older generation CG effects. Just 20 years ago you'd have been blown away by them. 60 years ago people would've been peeing in their theater seats. Kids that grew up knowing nothing before Terminator 2 are jaded.

Also, remember that the story is a fantasy. If you can buy into a silly story like The Wizard Of Oz, Harry Potter, or Lord Of The Rings, you're loopy enough to buy this too. The difference between great and lesser fantasy movies depends on budget. If Spiderman was made on half a million bucks, it would've been on SciFi too, with all the complaints I've read here tonight.

Anonymous Rex wasn't that bad, as long as you understand where it came from. Hey, if you were ever entertained by an ignorant show like HEE HAW (which had almost 600 episodes!), this movie is an EPIC!

Having not read any of the novels, I don't feel that I can supply a fully-informed critique; however I can provide a critique of the piece as a piece of filmed entertainment.

I'm usually disappointed by most SciFi fare, but I checked this one out on the basis of the reviews that the novels had gotten.

I was less than impressed by the script. For months I had heard what a funny and entertaining piece of work the books were, but that value failed to manifest on the screen. The initial discouragement of 'a modern-day dinosaur-detective, pursuing his career disguised as a human in a rubber costume' failed to be salvaged from the execution of the screenplay. While the 'rubber-suit idea had been updated, the script and the actors' performances didn't seem to be in on the joke - the voice-overs were dire, and the story wasn't funny or humorous, just contrived.

In the end, this film was no better than the average broken-genre absurdity that the SciFi Channel has been broadcasting over the past several years: It was just a bland disappointment manufactured by a network that either doesn't understand genre television or has bent so far over to broaden their audience that they've alienated their original constituents with 'family fun' like this feature.

In case you didn't know, the dinosaurs didn't become extinct, they developed holographic disguises and now live among us. These disguises don't work very well, and in the two hours of the movie we see quite a few of the dinosaurs running around in public looking like bargain basement CGI versions of the Sleestaks from Land of the Lost, but apparently this has worked to keep their existence a secret for thousands of years. They also get stoned on common household spices. They each have their own scent, which only other dinosaurs can smell. As you might expect, these scents include things like flowers, crabs, and even peaches and creme. They are ruled by various secret councils who sit around and play some sort of dinosaur dominoes in the back of Chinese take out restaurants.

So, you buyin' all that? Okay, then here's the plot.

The story focuses on Vincent Rubio (Trammell) and his partner Ernie Watson (Baldwin), a pair of detectives who uncover a secret dino society which wants to go to war with the humans. Ernie's daughter (the peaches and creme girl) gets kidnapped, and in the movie's most climactic scene Baldwin's head changes into a miniature stegosaurus and he charges the bad guy (imagine an out of shape grandpa playing make believe with the grandkids) and impales him. It actually would have looked more realistic if they would have gone to K-Mart and bought a dinosaur Halloween costume (surely they're on clearance this time of the year?).

The movie takes its ridiculous premise and winks (a lot) and chuckles at it, while at the same time trying to pull off a detective drama. I guess it sort of works on some level, if you're extremely bored and there's nothing else on TV and you you spent all day watching paint dry or something. It also takes dullness to new and unprecedented lows, of course as soon as you see the name "Baldwin" in the credits you know that's a given. The only "excitement" is when either of the female leads show up and you at least get to see an interesting character on screen for a minute or so. Some movies provide us with interesting characters throughout; It would probably be a good idea to watch one of those instead. Maybe you could check out an old episode of the Sci-Fi Channel's Invisible Man series, which was basically the same thing as this except its attempts at humor were successful. And its characters were exciting, and its CGI wasn't comedic, and its plots were interesting, and... Okay, maybe not a good comparison.

Woke up at 12:25am ans couldn't get back to sleep. Flipped through the channels on TV and though there was a Trek episode on I saw most of something called Anonymous Rex.

The premise is that dinosaurs didn't die out, they just got smaller and evolved, and have been hiding in human society for a long long time. I like the idea because the execution is very silly. Apparently "hiding" means in disguise as in make-up and then latex outfits and finally advanced holograms, but really it's a lot like the original and remake of "V" - people pretending to be aliens / reptiles in rubber suits pretending to be human.

In a way it reminds me of the one season run of Moonlight in which Vampires hide in human society. Both have "clean-up crews" and agents strategically placed in positions where the truth can be concealed. And like that series it's a bit low budget and you only see the main character use their powers in subtle (i.e. cost effective) ways. But, I did enjoy the detective/gumshoe elements of the story, even though the world posited is pretty superficial (we never see any Dino specific culture other than in a "cult" setting). I did also like the way that Vincent - the main character - uses his heightened sense of smell in his work and how its show visually.

Apparently there are a series of books as well, but I suspect they may be less fun than the TV movie

I really kind of enjoyed this. Not what I was expecting at all. The idea of dinosaurs surviving and living among people raises many questions, none of which go answered. It brings about familiarities with Men in Black and Alien Nation. Luckily, it falls into a weird void of comedic, cheesy, sci-fi noir. Our protagonist is one of these dinosaurs used to "silence" human witnesses. Immediately this causes a lot of interest, as we have a character that essentially kills humans, most of whom are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. At the same time the film does well to make us empathise with their plight. He is also a private detective, which leads to some rather knowing voice-overs. The best thing is that he is a conflicted character, one that kind of believes that the dinosaurs should stop living in the shadows, and rise up against the humans. Obviously the effects aren't up to much and they will generate chuckles. The science is out the window, just go with it. This will be a great film for B Movie fans, as it doesn't take itself too seriously, but doesn't hide its shortcomings with over-the-top winks at the camera. I also enjoyed the techniques employed for the dinosaur destruction flashback (using toys), and the visual representations to the different pheromones.

The Sci Fi channel puts out a lot of TV movies... many of them are dreaded crap. After seeing this, however, I was rather surprised. This movie wasn't bad at all.

Summary: Dinosaurs didn't all die out after a huge meteor hit the earth. Humans did take over the world (as we all know) and dinosaurs had to adopt. It's now modern day and dinos use sophisticated disguises to look like people and live secretly among us. A sub-society of these dinos wants to start a conflict with humanity because they think that they shouldn't be living like people and that in the long run they can take over the world for the better. A dino detective guy (the main hero and narrator) who has mixed feeling about this issue investigates stuff, and ultimately makes some pretty grand decisions. (an interesting story, I hear there's a book like this)

Good Things: The story is quite intriguing. The special effects look pretty good, and they are not used often (this is important or it ruins a film). The acting is decent, too. The film is edited incredibly well: The way visuals and sounds are shuffled and put together at times gives the film a real erie/awesome feel (a 'Fight Club' kinda weird I'd say).

Not So Good: There's some loose ends, some implausible stuff (but hey, its a science fiction movie..), and a rather strange ending. Nothing that bad though.

Of course someone is sure to badmouth this movie and call it complete garbage. That's their right... but I invite them to see Sci Fi's 'Raptor Island'. THAT movie, my friends, is the utter crap. It deserves something like a 2 out of 100. Bad story, bad acting, horrid special effects, all around awful. You might not be able to watch it to the end. THEN compare it to this... you'll be amazed. So please don't compare this to The Matrix or Saving Private Ryan: don't forget that it's a TV movie.

So... if you're sitting around at home and you want to see an interesting and entertaining little TV movie, give this a shot. It's one of the few rare Sci Fi movies worth watching.

Anonymous Rex is about smart dinosaurs living among humans in holographic costumes. They've been living with us for millions of years and are the dragons of legend. The story is about two PIs that track down a rogue dino organization called the voice of progress who is trying to change the world so dinos rule again. The dinos got high on various herbs, even the carnivorous ones. Some of the rogue cult vaporizes tarragon in a club to try and get the dinos to go on a rampage killing humans and exposing themselves so the dinos will need to come out and fight to protect themselves from the scared and angry humans. The directing was good along with the camera work and dialog. Acting was passable and helped keep the story moving. Subplot, one of the dinos daughters was a real human that wanted to be a dino.

I've seen a lot of bad movies in my day. I mean a lot. Shrunken Heads. Dracula 2000. Blood Diner. I've rented Leprechaun in Da Hood. I saw Mr. Nanny in the theater when I was young. But this movie is an absolute abomination. It makes Crocodile 2 look like Citizen Kane. This is pure concentrated excrement.

The movie is about dinosaurs, who have secretly evolved for the last 65 million years, who disguise themselves with hologram technology to blend in with human society. If that premise isn't idiotic enough, Daniel Baldwin apparently jumped at the opportunity to make some crack-addict's dream come true.

But to its credit, it did provide good comic relief. I did watch most of it (I had to take a 20 minute break for my Anonymous Rex-induced headache to subside). It's like a car wreck on the highway -- you can't help but to slow down and see what's going on. Still gets 1/10 but really deserves a -4.

Appalling.

I found myself getting angry and bewildered watching this. I simply could not believe that so many people involved in making such a travesty could so willingly waste my time. I just can not stop shaking my head in disbelief. Really, I can't imagine how those poor souls out there with a great idea for a film that they can't get made feel when they stumble across this. It is worth watching simply to store in the dark corners of your mind to bring up when someone asks "What is the worst movie you've seen?"

I was scrolling through the channels on T.V looking for something when I saw this bizarre description about a mutant Velociraptor detective disguised as a human. Thinking that it surely can't be as bad as it sounds and might be good for a few laughs, I jumped in. I was wrong. It was worse, even, than it sounds.

I pride myself on watching any movie through to the end, but I confess I just couldn't make the distance. The laughs at the poor special effects (really, I can't adequately describe how bad) and the dialogue, which is worse than most porno's, soon ran out.

Sometimes it can be fun to see those 'so bad they're funny' movies, but I can't even slot this debacle into that category.

'Anonymous Rex' is a pale, PALE shadow of the cockeyed brilliance of the books. While the setup is rather ludicrous, the books had a lot of fun with the concept. The narration sounded like something out of the back corner of Bruce Campbell's mind, the characters were engaging, and the dialogue was actually funny. Here... They ruined it. Whoever made this movie RUINED IT! There's no humor, no excitement, no LIFE to this movie. It takes itself too seriously. That is a fatal flaw when you're dealing with something as completely insane as this. Terrible acting, script (whose bonehead idea was it to give Ernie a human daughter?), special effects, everything completely and utterly SUCKED. Avoid this movie at all costs.

Preposterous premise, bad acting, annoying camera speed ups, and ninety minutes of nonsense. That would accurately describe "Anonymous Rex", an amateurish wannabe sci-fi. It's sad to see the likes of Faye Dunaway and Isaac Hayes in this disaster. The presence of Daniel Baldwin is not surprising, as he has an almost unblemished record of appearing in rubbish films. This is supposed to be a science fiction / detective drama investigating an underground society of surviving dinosaurs, that somehow have adapted to human size and form with holographic disguises. If you can buy that premise, then I guess this is your movie. Others beware. - MERK

Dinosaurs didn't die out. They live among us, in disguise. And some of them are private detectives. That's the premise of Anonymous Rex, written by Joe Menosky and based on the book by Eric Garcia. The show successfully blends fantasy with hard boiled detective drama, moving at a brisk pace from start to finish. I think it works best because of the matter-of-fact tone of it all. The show takes itself seriously enough without becoming a spoof of the PI genre. This a detective show that just happens to include dinosaurs in holographic costumes. With such a fantastic premise, suspension of disbelief takes a little work. But the show pulls it off thanks to some very crisp writing, nifty direction, and excellent performances from the cast. Every actor is spot-on for their character, with some nice performances turned in by Faye Dunaway and Isaac Hayes as members of a dinosaur council. While the two hour movie stands alone, it also sets up what would be a terrific weekly series. Dino For Hire? Sounds like a stretch. But it works, and works surprisingly well.

I really have to disagree with the first line of the movie, as, I wanted to grow up and be a private investigator, and still do.

Even though I love sci-fi and detective stories, I'm getting ever so tired of movies that start at the end and then drop back a week to show you how they could have ever gotten to this point. This theme is a bit overdone, somebody think of some new twist on this, please.

As is required by the Film Actors Guild, there is indeed a Baldwin in the movie, so F.A.G. will fully support this TV movie. There are a few unexpected turns, but few really original thoughts to the plot, other than the basis of the movie itself.

Rumour has it that this will be a series next season, and we need more good scifi, as it's running pretty thin out there. Here's hopin.

While watching this film, I kept having flashbacks to a vampire series which played a few years ago, Forever Knight. The similarities were many:

(1) Protagonist PI versus Police Detective (2) Nightclub as meeting place for Dinosaurs / Vampires (3) Protagpmost lives in loft (4) Hiding secret identities (Dinosaur / Vampire) (5) Human let in on secret ("Daughter" / Girlfriend) (6) Secret Society of Violent Elders (Council / Enforcers)

etc.

They both also looked like they were filmed in Toronto, though for Anonymous Rex I have no validation.

Don't understand the low rating of this move,story is original, very interesting,acting is very good,especially from Sam Trammell this is the story line-Vincent Rubio is a Velociraptor private investigator along with his partner, Ernie Watson, a Triceratops.

When Ernie's ex-girlfriend's brother is found dead, the incident is dismissed as suicide. But she doesn't believe her brother would kill himself and asks Ernie to check it out ("for free," Vincent observes). They investigate and Vincent notices the scent of another dinosaur on the windowsill. It was not a suicide.

At the funeral Vincent talks to a man dressed in a strange suit who belongs to the cult that the deceased had joined a while ago, "The Voice of Progress." He pretends to be interested in their ideals and gets himself and Ernie invited to a gathering. That's when Vincent catches a familiar scent nearby—the scent that was present in the victim's bedroom.

Vincent and Ernie go to the cult meeting and hear what the Voice of Progress stands for: they want to give its members their saurian identities back. Dinosaurs are living a lie. They pretend to be something they're not all their lives by wearing their disguises and it's stolen their identity, forced them to see themselves as monsters and the humans as normal. This affects Vincent a great deal. Ernie is untouched.

As their investigation continues, Vincent and Ernie come to realize what one man in the cult is planning. He is plotting a revolution, turning cult members into feral dinosaurs and releasing them on the humans. This will force both sides to face each other, and allow dinosaurs to come out of hiding at last. He knows the dinosaurs will win their freedom to live as they are, and not in the lie. Vincent is not sure what side he's on.

I was looking for some new monster movie to watch and came across this entry. I'm a fan of B-monster movies, so I might be a bit biased. This movie seemed pretty interesting, at least in concept. Dinosaurs survived extinction! Now they're human-sized and hidden among us under high-tech gadgetry. Before that they used make-up and then latex suits to disguise, of course. It's a very long shot to believable, like most conspiracy theories. Despite that, it is so bad in a good way that it kind of works. This title did have crappy CGI, at least for this generation. So-so acting was present, some is good, some not, some falls in between. Camera work could also use some tweaking. Even with its flaws, I liked this movie. Don't get me wrong, it isn't Shakespeare in the Park. Though with that title, expectations were not high, "Anonymous Rex" immediately led me to think about dinosaurs. And yes, it could have been a lot better, but it is entertaining and different. Apparently there is even a series of books it's based on. I obviously have not read them; I don't think I will either. The movie, though B-movie, Friday night material, is not exactly a glowing recommendation, though it might have led someone down the road to believe in lizard-men.

Although I was intrigued by the premise, I was expecting little in terms of quality as most SyFy movies are cheaply made, cheesy and badly written and acted. Having not read the book(s)(and I'd always try to judge a movie on its own terms anyway), I was pleasantly surprised by Anonymous Rex. True, the dialogue quality is still rather cheesy and stilted, and while the premise is interesting with a number of fun scenes there are also some scenes that came across as implausible or came across as loose ends. The ending too felt rather strange and abrupt in tone, and while there have been far worse performances Sam Trammel is a wooden lead. On the other hand, the editing for SyFy is actually quite good, more slick than choppy thankfully, and the effects not only are decent-looking but also not over-used. The dinosaurs are a fun and sometimes menacing presence, the sound effects are not bizarre but suitably eerie in places and the music is rousing in alternative to generic. The characters are thankfully more interesting than the usual annoying one-dimensional stereotypes that plague SyFy's movies, and while nobody is a standout as such(though also no-one is a complete waste either) the acting is still efficiently done on the whole. All in all, definitely could've been more but for me Anonymous Rex is one of the better SyFy originals. 6/10 Bethany Cox