DVD Review: Jurassic Fight Club

A dinosaur’s life was not easy. Volatile pre-historic terrain, harsh climate conditions, insufficient food and water, as well as unrelenting enemy predators made survival anything but a given. With cutting edge forensics leading to new discoveries every day, researchers are gaining remarkable insight into the psychology and physiology of these ancient beasts. The new series JURASSIC FIGHT CLUB, premiering on History, Tuesday, July 29 at 9pm ET/PT, brings the history of dinosaurs and their epic encounters to life like never before seen with astonishing CGI, illustrating the characteristics that made some the hunters and others the game.

Review:
At first I wasn’t too sure what to make of Jurassic Fight Club. The whole concept seemed like it was trying to be ‘too cool’. Let’s combine the idea of the cult classic film Fight Club with dinosaurs! Sounds like a viable idea. However, there is more to this series than what meets your eyes from the promos, and that’s a good thing.

Each episode in the series examines different dinosaurs from different time periods, showcasing their confrontations as well as providing information on their environments and how they survived. All of the information presented is based off of recent paleontological findings, so not only are you entertained, but also educated. The idea is quite good and thankfully deeper than all the commercials lead me to believe. Taking actual findings and putting them through current day lab processes to determine what happened at the final resting grounds of these animals puts a modern day twist to pre-historic crime scenes.

Examining the actual fights, I’m not sure the CGI is all that it could be. Calling it astonishing I think is a bit of an overstatement by the History Channel. There are multiple fight sequences where the dinosaurs just don’t visually fit in with their backgrounds. If you’re looking for the realistic look and feel from films such as Jurassic Park, you won’t find it with this series. The graphics will likely remind you of a video game you played 5 years ago. I found myself constantly wondering why they didn’t do the backgrounds in CGI as well, that would have improved the animated sequences quite substantially in my opinion.

The first episode, while it pulled me in, was not for the faint of heart. The battle scene wasn’t at all what I expected. It was hypothetical and based off of the creature’s bones, their brain cavity, and their environment. While the series does open the viewer’s eyes to the gruesomeness of the species (the Majungatholus in this episode), the fights are all just a series of guesses, and I’m not sure how many of those are made purely for the sake of entertainment.

This series is for dinosaurs what UFO Hunters was for the extraterrestrial. Nothing ground breaking, but entertaining none the less. The series premieres on July 29th, and wraps its first season on October 14th. If you’re a fan of dinosaurs (and how could you not be?), this series definitely holds some great offerings, and it’s worth checking out.

Review by Emma Loggins

Grade: B
Official site: http://www.history.com/minisites/jurassic-fight-club
Buy on Amazon: Jurassic Fight Club