Planet Raptor (2007)

Great Film overall

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

If you go into 'Planet Raptor' expecting nothing more than 'Carnosaur' in space, I can't see how you'll be disappointed. The plot if awful and confusing, and for a movie that shows off it's titular monster in the first 3 minutes of screen time, it moves painfully slow.The effects in the film are a highlight, for two very different reasons: 1. The CGI is offensivley bad. I'm talking 'Incredible Bulk' levels of lame. So bad, it's funny.2. The practical puppets used, much like in the 'Carnosaur' flicks, are kinda fun and give off that 90's direct-to-video vibe. Don't know if that was done intentionally (I doubt it), but I enjoyed them.Overall, the film is goofy, cheesy fun. Not a b-movie classic, but watchable.

I know it seems like it's a hobby that I rag on the SyFy movies. Trust me it isn't. I do keep watching them to see if they get any better, I do like to be entertained and I have once before if only to revel in their awfulness. But I couldn't do that with Planet Raptor. I disliked Raptor Island also, but compared to this (sort of) sequel it looks like an award winner. Planet Raptor suffers first and foremost from being cheaply made, the photography and editing are among the most choppy of any of SyFy's movies, and the special effects are abysmal, not only out-of scale and phony-looking but some like the dino munching on Steven Bauer actually look as though they were recycled from Raptor Island. The acting is just as bad, showing no kind of personality(apart from perhaps the end credits) or wanting to be there. In all honesty though, they don't have much to work with. The script is in extreme volumes of cheesiness and aimlessness, the story and action sequences are predictable and never exciting or suspenseful, the pacing is dull, the characters are clichéd and not likable at all and the direction is of lazy incompetence. Overall, a truly awful waste of time, one of about twenty plus times I have been infuriated rather than mildly entertained by a SyFy movie. And if I hear or see one more person trying to justify their movies' badness one more time, saying that it's meant to be bad(a typical cop-out of anybody trying to defend a disliked movie/show), I am going to scream, to me there is nothing fun about terrible visuals, flat directing, pacing and acting and completely uninteresting script and story, and while there is once in a while when these components are actually tolerable for SyFy Planet Raptor is not one of them. 1/10 Bethany Cox

"Planet Raptor" is a pretty enjoyable and entertaining creature feature.**SPOILERS**Receiving an SOS, Marines Captain Mace Carter, (Steven Bauer) Sgt. Jacqueline Moore, (Musetta Vander) Sgt. Pappy Mathis, (Peter Jason) Sgt. Krieger, (Florian Ghimpu) and Volkov, (Christopher Troxler) assisted by scientists Dr. Anna Rogers, (Vanessa Angel) and Dr. Tygon, (Ted Raimi) to investigate the signal on a strange planet, only to find it a deserted wasteland. When they are attacked by a group of ravenous lizards, they try to hold them off while seeking shelter in the area, finding a series of buildings that resemble Earth. Realizing that the creatures are actually Raptors and are trying to get them into their own traps, they try to find a way to get away from the creatures. Getting help from the last remnants of the Alien society still alive after the Raptor attacks, they believe they have a method for getting rid of the creatures and off the planet alive.The Good News: This was a fairly by-the-numbers Sci-Fi Channel Creature Feature. That means that their isn't too much new stuff here, as it's a fast-paced, action-packed film with a fun sense about it, which is what's on display here. The action here is much better than expected, starting off in the film much earlier than normal and feels rather nice about it. By allowing for the first ten minutes to feature an attack, it starts the film off rolling rather nicely by injecting a top-notch sequence right off-the-bat, namely the attack on the separate members of the rescue squad in the old-time village. Following this is the big attack on the squad's base, which is essentially a shootout amongst the streets with the creatures and their surroundings. This is a lot of fun, with the creature's battle tactics of popping out of everywhere allowing for plenty of excitement, and the squad's all-guns-blazing approach being rather fun as well. Other scenes, such as the first castle attack or the scenes in the underground nest being rather well-done as well. The castle one features some fun battle tactics from the creatures in an attempt to get the upper hand, with the Gothic undertones of the building allowing for an interesting battleground. The cave chases are rather good with the rocky cliffs being useful, casting shadows and allowing for the pop-out as well as the off-screen sounds of them off in the distance, making for a greater and atmospheric encounter than normal. The second castle battle is just as good, with more creatures, better tactics, and the introduction of the laser guns into battle allowing for some really good moments. Also, not surprisingly, the film's at it's best when it shows the raptors as prosthetics rather than CGI. To be able to see a realistic head or claw on-screen gives the film far more realism than it normally does, and those scenes, brief as they are, do give the film a positive air to it. The last plus here is the film's blood and gore. Despite not knocking a whole lot off, the fact remains that there's some really great deaths when they occur. There's a couple that have their heads ripped off, one is savagely bitten in the waist to the point of falling in half, another is grabbed and bitten around the shoulder and another couple are shown to be dismembered and torn up, which isn't including the wounds inflicted on the creatures. Though not too realistic-looking, it still adds to the violence level. These here are the film's pluses.The Bad News: There wasn't a whole lot really wrong with this one. The biggest issue with the film is the simply atrocious and utterly abysmal CGI here for the creature. Once they go on display, the creatures never once look anything close to realistic, mainly due to several issues. The skin color being changed is one, while the use of stock footage is another rather big angle that really makes it hard to take the look of these creatures seriously. Besides them looking incredibly phony, there's also times where they're out-of-scale to the environment. The big scene of this is the attack on the soldier's headquarters, which is just loaded with fake-looking moments. Besides the fact that they're completely out-of-scale through they're overall appearance, the biggest gaffe, through the stock footage, is that there's a shot where, despite being shown as human-sized before, a quick glimpse shows them as being big enough to hold a human in it's mouth and still continue on about another thirty feet in length, despite no other mention of such a creature's size before or after. There's just no way around the fact that it's CGI so terrible as to be so obvious in how fake it was. The only other flaw here is the low body-count for this kind of film. There really should've been more here, as there's way too many survivors and could've used a few more deaths, even to bump up the gore a little more as well. Overall, these here are the film's flaws.The Final Verdict: Not a whole lot really wrong here beyond the usual for one of these films, so take that as a ringing endorsement or not. Really worthwhile for those that enjoy these Sci-Fi Channel Creature Features or just the lovers of badly-made movies in general, though those who prefer quality cinema should look elsewhere.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language

It's made in 2007 and the CG is bad for a movie made in 1998. At one part in the movie there is a stop motion shot of a dinosaur that actually looks good, but this just makes the extremely amateur work on the CG stuff look even worse.The writing, acting, directing and everything else in this movie is just terrible. This is as bad as, if not worse than Raptor Island and 100 million BC... pure crap! Again, as with the other movies, the only scary part about this movie is that it actually got made and is now being aired on the sci-fi channel.I still can't understand how they somehow get people who do have some acting skills to act in these movies and then somehow get them to act as terrible as everyone else in the movie.For those of you who are unsure, the other poster is obviously being sarcastic in his review... or he is one of the people who worked on this movie.