Theordore Rex: Part One

     Before anything else, a note: I'm going to stop doing these reviews for a while (which would pretty much mean business as usual given how many weeks/months/whatever I miss anyway) but I've given control of the blog over to someone else who may or may not get around to writing some reviews of his own in this space.  Best of luck to Stevie and hopefully it goes so well that everyone who reads this (it very well might just be Stevie anyway) forgets all about me and doesn't want me back.  Anyway, on to the review of part of Theodore Rex.


     It's Fan Appreciation Month! ...Or at least “take a fan's suggestion 'cause I don't have many fans so I should try not to alienate them” month. Either way, up on the block is 1995's “Theodore Rex” which I always though was basically a buddy cop comedy starring Whoopi Goldberg and a dinosaur of the Jim Henson's Dinosaurs TV show variety. This, on the surface, seems like a can't-lose prospect. You've got the buddy cop genre that was in a bit of a lull between Lethal Weapon and Rush Hour, plus dinosaurs which were surging in popularity from Jurassic Park and the aforementioned TV show, and also Whoop Goldberg who was Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation and also did comedy work in Sister Act (which, now that I think of it, was just an Americanized version of Nuns On The Run since they're both about people trying to run from the mob and hiding in nunneries except Sister Act has one fewer Monty Python member and one fewer scene of Catholic school girls showering so it's CLEARY the inferior of the two) so this should've been awesome. But then again, so should Street Fighter have been (JCVD doing fighting, Kylie Minogue in a bathing suit, Raul Julia being awesome) and that... actually, I stand by my opinion that Street Fighter is one of the greatest comedies ever made and the only problem is very few people seem to understand that that's what it is (Raul Julia did, though, but he's dead so he can't back me up on this). Anyway, onto Theodore Rex so we can see how they managed to fuck this up.
      A voice-over reciting the lines that appear onscreen in a font that looks like it belongs in a fairy tale set in the middle ages... I'm not sure they knew what type of movie they had on their hands with the concept I just described. This isn't promising and neither is the fact that the first line is “once upon a time in the future”. We let Star Wars get away with crap like that because A New Hope was awesome, less slack will be given to you, Theodore Rex, you've been warned. The voice-over just gave away pretty much the bad guy's entire plot while clumsily trying to set up the story (just like Star Wars... guys, I really think the people in charge of this have no idea what kind of movie they're making) which is not really a good thing to do in a buddy cop movie.
      They're now trying to be very dramatic with a black & white, slow motion scene of some guy in a trench coat running through the woods or an abandoned amusement park or something. He's got a gun and is chasing somebody and... THERE'S THE DINOSAUR! It... it does not look well. Not in the “it's sick” kind of way, either, just in the “shouldn't we maybe spend a bit of money on the dinosaur costume for our movie where the title character is a talking dinosaur? Nah, I'm sure it'll be fine with two bucks worth of plastic and rubber” kind of way. Oh look, some colour added to the scene in the form of a digitally animated butterfly that flies over and lands on the dinosaur's nose. This serves more to highlight the fact that there WAS technology available for things like “effects” and “special effects” but they chose to use it on butterflies and (I assume) high grade cocaine and heroin rather than on the dinosaur. I... would like to think I'd make a different choice if only because if the dinosaur looked better maybe the movie would've made more money and I could then use THAT money on the high grade drugs.
      The butterfly explodes and it turns out it was just a dream as (who I assume is) Theodore Rex wakes up in some adorable pajamas and a sleeping cap while also startling his dog. Yes, the Tyrannosaurus Rex has a pet dog. This is the kind of movie it's going to be. Just accept it and move on. Also: we're in colour and his arms are long enough to reach for a phone and bring that phone up to his head so he can talk into it. “Teddy Rex” is a cop and calls in to see if anything odd happened that night because “he had a funny feeling”. Upon finding out there was a murder and saying he was on his way, he rushes... into the bathroom to take a shower and sing a Sesame Street style song. He also talks to himself a lot and puts on a neon orange flannel coat and says to himself in the mirror he's “looking good”. The 90s were weird, okay?
      He owns a device called (and labeled) a Cookie Shooter. There are no jokes to be made for this. I would just like to say that I would invest money in this product and would like to get in on the ground floor of whoever builds a working prototype.
      The cityscape looks like some mix of Dick Tracy (the movie) mixed with mid-90s computer graphics in cartoon-bright colours. I'm not sure what else I expected them to be, now that I think about it.
      A guy is roller-blading and gets shot by what I assume are the bad guys and Whoopi Goldberg is zip lining from the rooftop in order to bust into their truck and announce herself as a cop after some dialogue with her partner about her CPU being ready for action while wearing black leather everything while still in the cartoonish cityscape I mentioned. I feel like this scene needs to be mentioned more often on lists of the most 90s things to ever 90s. Especially with the “witty” dialogue going on. And of course there's a shootout and Whoopi ends up riding the underside of a surgical table while being dragged from the back of the truck and shooting at the henchmen. And now, after the chase/fight ends with the truck exploding (because of course it does), Whoopi and her partner get yelled at by the chief (“you call yourselves cops? You're a circus act!”) via hologram. This could be the greatest cheesy movie ever.
      I guess the first dinosaur wasn't just in a dream since there's a dead dino in a pond and this is the one that Teddy Rex shows up to and talks to some human cop about how “all dinos have a 'feel' for each other”. Is... is this some new kind of racism? Are dinosaurs supposed to represent minorities and this is some racist white guy assuming all blacks/Hispanics/Asian/whatever are telepathically linked? That's weird, even by racism standards. Worth mentioning: all the human cops are wearing black leather and looking (well, TRYING to look, remember: two of them are Whoopi Goldberg and some doughy white guy that looked like Andy Richter) like pre-Matrix bad-asses, while Rex is wearing the orange coat, a purple shirt, and a green sweater underneath the shirt with a rainbow scarf on top of it all. I suppose when you're a goddamn Tyrannosaurus Rex you don't need to be worried about looking like a bad-ass: you ARE a bad-ass.
      The bad guys are now in conference. Then henchman from Whoopi's scene is reporting to “Mr. Edge” (the bad guy that killed the first dino. It's a quick scene and pointless since all that happens is henchman gives Edge a medallion off the guy he killed.
      Raccoons are extinct and young black children are working at dinners and sounding like old black men who work in dinners and say things like “what's happening to the world today?”. The kid wants to set Whoopi up with his dad who apparently owns the place, though so I guess he's just a kid not some weird case of... I don't even know. Also, Whoopi is “off work now” but gets called in and just immediately folds over. Same as when the kid asks her to come meet his dad. She says no, and then says yes right away. What the hell kind of cop is she?
      Teddy Rex is at some ball trying to meet the commissioner. There are some “hilarious” “he can't control his tail” moments and then he meets the commish, and the doctor that revived dinosaurs (and the hot girl that is just there to be hot... which she is). Also, Rex is just a “community relations” police officer. Just a publicity stunt. But he wants in on the case because it's the first “dinocide” in history. This is also TOTALLY about racism, by the way. The commisioner (who is black, by the way) and his aide (who is white) are talking in the most racist terms imaginable about the headlines where the “visionary comissioner who had the foresight to see beyond race appointed the first dinosaur detective”. Teddy is also a recovering carnivore. That is the dumbest term for vegitarian ever. And now Rex is being partnered up with Whoopi in classic wacky buddy cop movie logic. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Last Action Hero (in this case with the scenes where the desk sargeant is partnering up teams of cops in the most opposite fashion possible) is an amazing movie and anyone that doesn't understand why is a fucking idiot. The commishioner is also wearing a white scarf like he's in Tim Burton's Batman. Whoopi doesn't like dinosaurs. She's speciest.
      The aide is on the payroll of the bad guys (the scientist who created dinosaurs and the hot girl as well as the others from before) and he LITERALLY says that he's “teamed up the division's token dinosaur with a burned out cop” to solve the case and that “they'll definitely blow it”. How could that NOT be considered heavy handed forshadowing?
      Rex is a bumbling fool. That's basically the jist of the next scene with him and Whoopi. No movie where Whoopi Goldberg is the hard-ass of the pair should be taken seriously and I wonder why this ever was. I mean, they're having a dino autopsy in the Museum of Natural History and the doctor in charge is the “head dinosaurologist” and I did not make that term up, they did. This movie is the best. Also, Teddy now mind melds with the dead dinosaur... and also gets a piece of the exploding butterfly out of the snout of the dead dinosaur. And then uses a tail print like a finger print (because why not?) and they're led to the Extinct Species Club where the most terrifying version of a triceratops I've ever seen is working the bar while wearing a checkerboard shirt. Or maybe he's the DJ. It's... it's not important since there's some other dinosaur that meets them at the door wearing a PVC French maid costume and speaking with an overly flamboyantly gay accent. This movie is so ridiculous that I can't even imagine. They're served some plastic seaweed and we're treated to some discussion about eating meat and we learn that dinos call humans “soft bodies”.
      And now the “Jessica Rabbit introduction” scene. Because Who Framed Roger Rabbit was awesome so why not ape that? Her name is Molly Rex and she's Carmen Miranda or Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles and just ridiculous. But, as my friend Julie pointed out: they put enough thought thought into the movie to give her a mic to wear and sing into to make it realistic... but not enough to care about any other realism.
      For no reason Rex and Whoopi are backstage after Molly's dressing room talking to her and telling her the dead dino was registered as living with her and... okay, it's not important because she's changing costumes and they're trying to make it sexy and... WHO IS THAT SUPPOSED TO APPEAL TO? I mean... if it's a parody, sure, but this is just something else.
      Now the bad guys are chasing Teddy on skateboards while he's in a car and they're keeping up. This is ridiculous. Also, clones or something a creepy doctor doing the autopsy for the human Whoopi is investigating. Teddy doesn't believe in violence. Doesn't even have a gun. Whoopi's response when she responds to his call for help? “you don't believe in violence? And you want to be a police person?” HOW IS THIS NOT THOUGHT OF AS HEAVY HANDED “SATIRE” AND THE PINACLE OF 90S MOVIES?!!
      Now they're getting yelled at by the commish again. After Rex was starting to unleash his rage on the desk seargeant when asking for a new dino friendly car. And for no reason Whoopi was defending him. She hated him not two seconds ago. Whatever.
      Teddy wants to go undercover so he goes to the transporter room (that is what it looks like and is obviously meant to be) and talks to some woman in charge of it and she pushes some buttons while he's on the transporter pad and makes him look like a Bugs Bunny-style opera star and then pushes the button again and give him a stereotypical 1800s Mexican revolutionary look. This is the movie we're watching. He talks it terrible Spanglish until they push the button again and make him stereotypically Hawaiian. And then Scottish. Funny? I guess. But the final thing he gets is... I don't even know how to explain it except to say “late 80s rapper” with a T-Rex wearing it and saying “yeah. I'm too sexy for my clothes” while Whoopi Goldberg says “you look like a real cop”. WHAT KIND OF WORLD ARE THEY LIVING IN? That's undercover? What in all kinds of fuck?
    Their new car is a garbage truck. This seems dumb for mor reasons than ever. Now they're going to play hockey on rollerblades and I REALLY think I need to review Mighty Ducks 2 since this is now the scene where they have kids teaching them how to knuckle puck. Except Teddy scores three goals with his tail while the goalie does nothing. There is no reason for this scene.
      Whoopi and Teddy get to the park where the evil doc is doing evil things. The hot girl in red greets them and does nothing exept lead them to the doctor. Her whole point in this movie is “be hot”. It's tragic because it's so obvious. I mean, there are SO MANY other”just because you're hot” roles for women out there, at least they could have made this one less conspicuous...
      The bad guy talks English with a German accent. This is the most common thing EVER in Hollywood movies... maybe second common to Russian bad guys. Third is “Arabic” villains like in True Lies and other movies... All of that racism aside, there's now a German villain talking about the extermination of people/dinosaurs/etc.  Just throwing that out there for all the history majors in the crowd.
      Whoopi Goldberg mimicking the hot Chick in red is... funny? That seems to be the idea... it falls flat. I'll say it since no one else wants to: Whoopi Goldberg had lesbian sex with Demi Moore in the movie “Ghost”. Pat Swayze was dead and possessing her, sure, but it's still Whoopi's body that was finishing Demi off.  Try to get that out of your head.
      Back to the movie.
      There's a a BUNCH of bullshit... from dinosaurs and they all get placated by foreign sounding guy and red dress sounding like they care about the death of a dinosaur. I... I can't even guess how racism this is. It's a lot.
      For literally no reason, the black kid that was running the dinner is now being hassled by the bad guys. He tries to fight but... we're cut with Rex getting drawn into Jessica/Molly Rabbit/Rex and her... wait? Why are we at Teddy Rex's place? Seems like a poor place for whatever witness she was supposed to be. This is... going to be like the lizard sex scene in Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas.
Whoopi calls Teddy out and, for no reason that can be explained, he leaves a “hot” reptile lover to go with Whoopi Goldbberg to try and solve a crime. And ther's the most 90s... this blog doesn't do pictures, but the shot of him leaving his apartment to fight crime now takes over as “most 90s thing ever”.