Eberts Thumb

A professor of archeology heads to the Turkish border to investigate a volcano with the most annoying grad students ever. You'd think that he'd have some say in who gets to go, but instead he brings his crush, two dorks, some ugly girl, and a bimbo. The bimbo gets attacked by a Pterodactyl while swimming in her undies (sorry, no nudity), and eats one of the dorks. That doesn't stop the professor from carrying on with his trip though (in his defense, they never found the body, so really he was just leaving someone behind). Meanwhile, Coolio and his team of the worst special forces unit, who can't hit anything unless its ten yards away, are hunting a terrorist and plan to bring him to justice by dragging him through the Turkish rainforest. The professor's gang crosses paths with the terrorists, Coolio's "Special Forces", and the Pterodactyls all at the same time. For the rest of the movie, they end up running from the Pterodactyls while shooting aimlessly at the sky and never reloading.

The bright spot with this movie is that its unitentionally funny, has some good gore, and answers the question that been on everyone's mind since 1996, "What's Coolio doing now?". The bad part is that most of the characters are irritating and nobody knows how to point a gun. This goes double for the "Special Forces". Isn't there some training course in Hollywood taught by real ex-special forces guys on how to act like you've had some military training? Coudldn't they have taken the weekend or afternoon class? Couldn't they have gotten someone on set who went through basic training? It would have improved this movie from "so bad its funny" to "so bad its sorta funny".

El Chupacabra

What can I say that Ebert's Thumb hasn't? Well, actually quite a bit given how riduclous this movie was. I'll review three of the glaring problems in the movie.

One: It was sad to see an elite special forces unit surround a rebel camp in the jungle until they were within biting range. Then a firefight erupted and you would think that these trained soliders with the element of surprise could quickly dispatch the unprepared rebels. Umm, no. The firefight went on for several minutes with numerous rebels standing in the middle of the camp firing widly while not less than 10 feet away special forces soldiers sprayed their automatic weapons. How did they miss what was right in front of them?...For 3 whole minutes? Some special forces had silencers, some didn't. What's the point? One guy looked like he had never fired a gun before and was wrestling it like a fireman on a high pressure hose. You'd think Coolio's could teach these guys some pointers, like how to shoot out of a moving car.

Two: Okay, this very confusing and frustrating. Apparently when it gets dark, all the Pterodactyls go to sleep on their rocky mountain spire. T hat's right, asleep, non-eating-and-killing. Earlier, one of the researchers (the graduate student of dumbassedness) was abducted by a Pterodactyl and flown to its nest as food for the hatchlings. The soldiers want to rescue her and notice that all the Pterodactyls are asleep. Coolio who plays the special forces commander hatches a plan. Now I expected relatively safe night-time rescue when the eating-and-killing things were asleep, but the scene cut away to the next day. that's right, instead of getting her the hell out of there when the sky isn't filled with winged death they go back to their cabin for a good night sleep and recommence their rescue in the morning when the sky is filled with winged death.

The plan: The special "olympics" forces tie a rope to a sheep and coax a Pterodactyl into flying it on up to its nest. Then, instead of getting the woman, who is on the other side of a massive gourge, to climb across the rope to safety, they send some poor bastard to go get her. So now, not only are Pterdactyls circling and swooping overhead, but the man on the rope has to carry himself and 'stupid' back. He manages to get the woman back, but falls to his death when the rope is cut by a Pterodactyl (holding scissors?). Luckily he conveniently planted some C4 in his friends carcass before it was brought up to the nest (we never see this) and before he dies, he detonates it and destroys the nest. 100% far-fetched.

Third: The movie's climax involved Coolio and the last remaining Pterodactyl. Coolio has a rocket launcher with him that fires homing missles. He has his second brilliant idea of the movie of firing a rocket at the Pterodactyl and then letting it grab him. How was that a good idea Coolio? Now you can have your arms and legs ripped off and then be blown up by a rocket. Needless to say, Coolio dies. After that I just lost interest and started humming "Gangsta's Paradise". I think the professor saved the day by convincing the pterodactyl that it is was extinct...

Other funny points:
The nightvision goggles that looked like safety goggles painted black with bottle caps glued on the front.
The huge stryrofoam rock that almost fell over when one of the actresses sat on it. Did they really need to make a rock just for that scene?
The propensity for everyone in the movie to wander out of the camoflauge of the forest in to large open fields.

Charles Bronson

THIS IS A MUST SEE FOR FUNNY B-MOVIES. THEY ACTUALLY TRIED TO MAKE THIS A BLOCK BUSTER MOVIE BUT FAILED MISERABLY. WHEN COOLIO IS HEAD OF THE WORST SPECIAL FORCES IN THE WORLD YOU KNOW THIS MOVIE SUCKS ASS. I LOVE THE UNLIMITED BULLETS EVERYBODY GOT AND THE GUN FIGHTS FIVE FEET AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. IF YOU WANT A GOOD LAUGH GO RENT THIS. DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT BEING RENTED BEFORE YOU GET THERE.

Kibakichi's Final Word

Bury some eggs from your fridge in a dormant volcano. 65 million years later, they should hatch into chickens and rain death on humans who have since evolved into small pellets of corn.