Attack of the Sabretooth
2005
Directed by George Miller
SciFi Channel has an addiction. That addiction doesn’t flood its veins with poison, or spend the rent money betting that the Steelers will cover the spread. This addiction is with garbage. The SciFi Channel loves garbage. It probably wants to BE garbage. A few more movies like this and its wish will come true. There is only one thing redeeming about Attack of the Sabretooth: It didn’t kill me. But even then, the movie is a failure, as anything this terrible should be fatal!
This crapfest is another of the long parade of SciFi Channel originals, and a sequel in name only to the film Sabretooth. It’s also a sequel in CGI, as some of the same sabretooth renders are reused. In case you are wondering, we are using the British spelling of sabretooth because the film did, as that helps convey to the reader in text form just how painful the movie was. You so want to complain about the spelling of “sabertooth”, don’t you? Well, TOO BAD!!!! MuHAHAHAHAHA!!! I had no escape from the film thanks to a malfunctioning DVD eject button. In fact, that DVD keeps malfunctioning whenever bad films are playing. The TV refuses to be shut off, I unplug, and things continue to play. There is no escape from the bad films, and now you have no escape from reading the horror that is Attack of the Sabretooth. Hey, you can’t go to another website now! I forbid it! Get in here and read on, find out how the evil businessman is killed by CGI so bad you can create better with MSPaint. Find out how they have a retarded walrus sabretooth screaming around like he just got ripped off by the carpenter and couldn’t eat any clams (yes, an Alice in Wonderland joke.) Behold Robert Carradine’s here-before unknown skill of turning his head into a failed CGI student’s rendering! It’s all here, and more!
But first, who stars in this dreck?
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Attack of the Sabretooth (AOTS from now on) starts out trying to impress you. It has opening credits, and throws up a blood effect for the title. However, every credit after that is bland white font on a black background. Yes, they gave up after five seconds! The credits are a successful metaphor for the film, promising much but ultimately delivering only disappointment. AOTS wishes from the bottom of its deformed little heart that it was the movie Jurassic Park, and even patterns sections of the film after the blockbuster. It also wishes it was one of those films where horny teenagers get isolated somewhere and are killed one by one. By mixing the two together, it becomes worse than the sum of the parts.
For now, it is just Jamaican Park, and an overweight guard named Sebastian is taking a break from his guard duty to look at the famous porn magazine NZX. (New Zealand X-Rays?) He loses the centerfold page to the wind, and it flies into a fenced off area. Sebastian goes looking for it, only to then see Babe the Pig just chillin’ by the sabretooth pen. Sebastian must have some weird cravings. I, for one, never go after my porn that has been blown away in the wind and landed in sabretooth tiger cages. Not after that last time, where I got two puncture marks on my arm. But now I can store pencils without using a backpack, so it all worked out in the end!
SABRETOOTH VISION!!! Sabretooths see like they are Predators submerged in Orange Cream Soda, I bet you didn’t know that. Sabretooth/Orange Soda vision Predator then chops off Sebastian’s arm, and soon we have one dead guard. I’m guessing the sabretooth was packing a knife, as their teeth aren’t made for slicing limbs off. I know this film wanted to be scientifically accurate, so this must have been a one-time thing and not a reoccurring theme. Next, we find out that the place I called Jamaican Park is actually Primal Park, a name even more dumber than the bad fake one I made up. Not a good sign.
Primal Park is run by an evil bald man named Niles, who also comes equipped with a sycophantic lackey of questionable sexual orientation named Alan. Niles is setting up an investor’s meeting, and has also invited his former brother-in-law, Grant. Niles and Grant have that type of rivalry where they murderously hate each other, and Niles is eager to finally show up the pompous Grant. Niles really lays it on, obsessed with having Grant “covet” what he owns. Okay, dude. $873 million is riding on the presentation, and hopefully we get a scene of rich investors being slaughtered left and right like in Shark Attack 3, because that would rule!
Grant arrives soon afterwards, and begins laying on the condescending to Niles. Security guards on the island see an alarm, while sitting comfortably in their chairs looking at video screens. They’ve not noticed Sebastian is missing yet, but send someone to check on the security alarm.
It looks like the Tri-Lambs have arrived! No, wait, these are just some lame kids from some lame sorority/fraternities that have to go to an island for some sort of scavenger hunt initiation that the Greek orders always do in movies but never in real life. None of them are pledging Lambda Lambda Lambda, but all of them should die, die, DIE!!! These characters are aggravatingly bad, making you want to jam salami down their pants and throw them in a pit with some Dobermans. They are more ethnically diverse than a Star Trek crew, I was just waiting for one of them to be a Vulcan. They all get specific targets for their scavenger hunt, (Kirk=Conch Shell, Alaina=seashell spear, Alys=box of M-80s, Collete=cannibal fork, Robbie=cotton candy machine part) and thankfully aren’t on screen for a little bit for this next scene:
The smoke alarm goes off on the island, set off by maintenance guy Brian welding, and he’s ignoring the requests to stop given by Head Guard Savannah. Sadly, we jump back to the dumb students, where Robbie mentions that Niles invited them. Why? There is no explanation that makes sense. With Niles becoming a paranoid maniac that anything might go wrong and spoil his $873 million investors meeting, why would he want a bunch of college age screwups running around his island messing things up? I think the whole thing is a huge scam, and the entire Scooby Squad is trespassing on private property. I will not rest until they are all arrested and fined. The stupid kids continue to argue and spout terrible dialogue like Collete’s “A Goth’s attitude is supposed to suck!” Just rename AOTS to A Goth’s Attitude and we’ll all be happy. Okay, I’ll still be upset, as the movie is still going. Why, movie? Why are you doing this to me? How come DVD players never break when you need them to?
Savannah talks to Brian, in her bra! This movie just kicked it up a notch! They have some PG rated sex off camera, as the other control room guard tries to zoom in for a better shot. Alan checks on the missing Sebastian (why is Alan the assistant tracking down missing guards, and not the other guards? Oh, that’s right, the other guards are getting it on while on the clock.) Alan finds some bloody clothes, and finds a Sabretooth that eats him, allowing Alan to see more of Sebastian floating around him inside the creature’s stomach. The only good camera shot in the movie happens in this scene, when we see the sabretooth charge at Alan in the reflection of his sunglasses. This also covers some of the bad CG elements, so it is useful as well as a lone bright spot of creativity in a dark abyss of despair.
Speaking of Bad CG, the GIANT CGI GOLDEN SABRETOOTH BUILDING is the worst CG construct in the history of the SciFi Channel. Worse than CG in Gryphon. I capitalize its name to help it stick out, as it stuck out like a sore thumb in the film. Forget the sore thumb, it stuck out like a zombie attack in the middle of Gone With the Wind. That’s why he needs $873 million dollars, he blew his dotcom startup money on construction golden buildings in the shape of extinct animals. That’s exactly the smart business planning I look for when I choose to invest my money. Primal Park is the Jurassic Park knockoff that promises “genetic miracles, reasonably priced.” Like Jurassic Park, we all know that soon many of these characters will be watching their own intestines slide down the gullet of the very creatures they came to gawk at.
The kids continue to vandalize the park, as Robbie snags a cotton candy machine part, and then they break into the main laboratory building. The girls watch them while cracking wise, but soon join them inside to see if their items are also there. Back at the garden party, attempting to finalize the funds for the park’s opening, Niles explains that you can get sabretooths by just doing genetic multiplication of mitochondrial DNA. For those of you whose eyes glazed over in that last sentence, that is incredibly incorrect and the writer is a moron. But we already knew that. Niles is giving a speech that ends with music that sounds very similar, but not exactly like, the Jurassic Park theme. We get it movie, stop reminding us of something better, you only make yourself look worse. Savannah tells Niles they are at Code Orange and must shut down the park! Niles ignores her, probably a swipe against useless color-coded terror threats, or bad writing. Code Orange, orange soda vision, hmmmm…
The Scooby Gang of dumb kids break into a computer room to shut off the security cameras so they won’t be caught stealing things, but they also shut off the security fences and electric gates. Have I mentioned I hate all of these characters and hope they all die? Because I do, and they should. The black security guard from the security room is soon eaten by a sabretooth. Where was he when they were looking for Sebastian? Brian and Savannah realize the animals are loose, so Brian will try to tranquilize the cats while Savannah ties off the gates, as they don’t have simple click-latches for some strange reason. Also, she will never mention nor bother to actually try to shut the gates, even though the cats have seemed to run back into their cages. The power is still out, so they can leave at will. Also, we find out that Savannah’s previous three lovers have all died horribly in accidents. Brian becomes somewhat wary of her upon learning that, while she becomes turned on. Yeah. The movie went there.
Niles obsession with impressing Grant transforms into giving the investors a tour of the premises. Inside the complex, blonde girl Alaina asks “Aren’t those, like, old weapons on the back wall?” Chew your gum. Let’s summarize the next few minutes in one sentences: The stupid kids get more of their items, the lovers make up, and Grant is still not impressed. The kids finally are about to be discovered, so they have to hide in the science lab, seeing sabretooth fetuses. Alaina wandered away from the group after getting her scavenger hunt item (a spear), is stalked in SABRETOOTH-VISION, and is killed after she fails to use the spear correctly in defense. For some reason it takes forever to kill her, but finally her head is bitten off. Robbie runs and hides in an incubator, while Kirk manages to run into a drunk rich girl who got separated from the investors. She looks familiar….Aunt Beru! Yes, it is Bonnie Piesse(!), who was Beru Lars in Star Wars Episodes 2 and 3! But here she is a drunk party girl about to be a notch on Kirk’s bedpost. No wonder she melted the ice heart of Owen Lars.
Brian catches Alys and the Goth girl Collete, and the three of them find the dead body of Alaina. In his office, Niles tells Grant about the sabretooths, but is dismissed with “Anyone with a chemistry degree can do cloning these days!” Niles refuses to tell the exact details for making the sabretooths to Grant, but then leaves Grant alone in his office. Grant plots to steal the research and publish it on the internet for anyone to read. Robert Carradine is having a grand time overacting in this sequence! The data is stolen. Brian is stalking one of the sabretooths. He finds it, but instead of shooting it he sets off some containers of flammable gas that all biology labs have lying around all over the place. Charbroiled kitty!
Kirk is trying to nail Aunt Beru, but is cockblocked by pussy! Sabretooth pussy. Aunt Beru becomes dinner. Brian is joined by a Polynesian guard (where has this guy been hiding the past hour?) who tells him there is also a third sabretooth, only it is a freakish mutant with no back legs that is CG meshed on a walrus model that the artists had lying around. The CG is pretty terrible. Words cannot give justice to how bad it is. We get some information as to why the cats keep attacking – they are bulimic! Yes, after every meal, they puke it all up just to kill again! Alys is given a gun, because she is black and thus knows how to shoot guns, or something, the movie sucks so much I’ve stopped paying much attention except to occasionally have my soul crushed by the God-awfulness. Niles is all “I won’t close the park!” because we always have that character in these films. As the kids chat and are angsty, goth girl gets more gothy. She says she’d be a “Goth even if there were no other goths!” Right. I’m a Roman Centurion, even though there are no other Roman Centurions. Praise be to Caesar! The heroes plot to get the power back on, because one of the must have seen Jurassic Park and knows what to do next. But will they find Samuel L. Jackson’s arm?
Kirk finally gets his sorry butt eaten. Well, his sorry head, as the cat seems to want nothing to do with the rest of him. The rest of the group gets the power back on while the Polynesian Guard is eaten. You knew he was dead because I don’t think they even gave him a name. But it was nice of them to make every guard a different ethnicity so you can tell them apart easily. It is a refreshing change from dozens of identical Eastern European actors. Savannah announces that the sabretooths are loose to the investors, and Grant is trying to escape with the cloning data, but gets his head taken off instead. A CGI head. A unconvincing CGI head that is less realistic that heads from The Sims. Grant’s body keeps walking several paces before dropping.
Savannah tries to kill the “special” sabretooth, but is stopped by Niles. Niles runs outside the building and locks the sabretooth inside. The special sabretooth keeps pounding on the door, shaking the building. It pounds so hard, the GIANT CGI GOLDEN SABRETOOTH BUILDING can no longer support the GIANT CGI GOLDEN SABRETOOTH’S GIANT CGI GOLDEN SABRETOOTH TOOTH, which falls forward and stabs the GIANT CGI GOLDEN SABRETOOTH TOOTH into Niles, mouth first. This sequence is the worst CGI ever to grace any movie I’ve seen. Worse than Vampire Vixens from Venus. Worse than Tripping the Rift. The walrus sabretooth is shot in the back. What a lame finale. The team says they got them all (no they didn’t, one is still free…) so they leave the island (there is still one left…) Hello, movie, one is still around, do you think the audience can’t count to three?
“Shocking” ending coming up. Autumn is still alive, but now being stalked by SABRETOOTH-VISION! The end!
Attack of the Sabretooth, go F— yourself!
A review of the security of Primal Park:
The film also failed to show the rich investors getting slaughtered by the sabretooths, forced us to endure a goth character, and had some of the worst CGI since the invention of the computer. Zork text games had better graphics. I’d rather be eaten by a Grue than endure this film again. The only thing saving it from a score of one was the enjoyment from the terrible graphics and seeing Parry Shen.
Rated 2/10 (NZX – porn to get killed for, Kool-Aid vision!)