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Overall Rating : 2/10
Directed By : John Carl Buechler
Jeff Fahey (Corpses)
Dee Wallace-Stone (Halloween (2007) )
Tony Todd (Candyman)
Alexandra Ford (Miner's Massacre)
Supplied By : Westlake Entertainment
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : Apr. 3, 2007
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| PLOT Hidden deep in the industrial district of downtown Los Angeles, Dr. Harrison Parker has developed the “Eden Formula.” This new, revolutionary, cutting-edge technology can actually synthetically reproduce virtually ANY organism. And it does! Locked away in a subterranean vault is a prehistoric creature created by the scientists at Calgorin Industries to impress their stockholders. Unknown to Dr. Parker, his research has been used to genetically create a giant Tyranosaurus Rex! When a group of industrial spies break into Calgorin Industries to try and steal the formula, they encounter more than they bargained for. Unwittingly they release the monster! In a race against time, Rhonda Shapton, top executive at Calgorin Industries, and Dr. Parker try and stop the rampaging beast from it’s killing spree! |
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| THE REVIEW In THE EDEN FORMULA, the plot is basic and it's simple. Two Scientists at the Calgorin Industries lab in Los Angeles, Dr. Harrison Parker, along with his assistant Rhonda have developed a new formula, a formula known as "The Eden Formula". With the formula, researchers can genetically engineer any living organism, past or present - knowing this the Scientists have reproduced a Tyrannosaurus Rex.. The fact that they harbor a giant T-Rex inside their laboratory is meant to be kept secret until they are able to unveil their discoveries in front of stockholders. What the crew at Calgorin Industries didn't expect to happen does when the Giant creature breaks loose and causes chaos in the city, steadily slaughtering innocent bystanders. Coincidentally this all happens on the same night that a group of spies, fronted by their leader Mr. Radcliffe break into the lab to steal the formula, with plans of later detonating a bomb - destroying the lab. On a night where the group of spies thought they'd have the office all to themselves, they unfortunately find out that both Parker and Rhonda are doing some late night studying they have also hidden the formula they seek. But soon enough the formula would be the least of their priorities, getting out alive would take top bidding as all that are inside eventually come under attack of the huge dinosaur. Let me just say, there are some bad Sci-Fi TV Movies and then there are some REALLY bad Sci-Fi TV movie - and this would fall in the later category....really bad. With the T-REX being the films selling point(it's on the cover art, and it's original title was more direct in TYRANNOSAURUS WRECKS) you'd expect to see a film chock full of scenes showing this huge giant creature ripping through a city, much like Godzilla right?....Wrong as eventually the T-Rex angle of the story, takes a backseat and virtually becomes a sub-plot to the main story which is the spies and Dr. Parker angle. We do go back and forth between the two stories with scenes of the Tyrannosaurus walking down the street and occasionally catching a victim eating them alive(all of which becomes quite dull and repetitive....the monster has no real presence or personality). The main plot is really not too specially in it's own right. The spies go to where they believe the formula to be stashed(thanks all in part to a security guard, whom later is revealed as an informant to the spies I am assuming), they do not find it there so what to they do? They then predictably take Harrison Parker hostage and try to beat it out of him....not to original. All of this is padded out with lots of boring and ridiculous dialogue by the characters and with Rhonda looking for help. Of course this all later culminates with the monster coming back to the lab to attack some of the spies and so on....truly boring and trite stuff if you ask me. I honestly cannot believe that big to moderate stars like Dee Wallace-Stone, Tony Todd or Jeff Fahey would star in this kind of low budget un-imaginative stuff but they seem to be taking a lot of these roles as of late....that is until an occasional big role comes along(for example the HALLOWEEN remake for Wallace-Stone and GRINDHOUSE for Fahey). There's not much more I can say other than THE EDEN FORMULA is a film definitely of cheesy epic proportions. The films lack of budget but obvious rich intentions hinder this film, and the result is somewhat of a laughable mess. This film uses multiple scenes that consist of stock footage from other films and stock sound effects(i.e. all the screams are identical), something I absolutely hate when it's too obvious, so that was just something else I couldn't ignore - overall I have seen better than THE EDEN FORMULA, but only a few have been worse. |
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| GORE
METER 2/10 Mostly just the dinosaur eaten people's heads and torsos. It's all done by CGI, unfortunately it looks really tacky and thrown together. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 2/10 Typical "invasion/attack" type themes that really are forgettable so much so that you don't even notice the score after awhile. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM To be blatantly honest, THE EDEN FORMULA is a terrible film all together. The performances(although the three main stars are known people) are just bad....especially when everyone has to interact with the dinosaur that is obviously not there. I still can't figure out why there are tons of great movies out there that are only on VHS and are yet to be released on DVD(and some likely never will be)yet films like this that are not even mediocre rate get released by at least some one. I would've rated this even lower but I just couldn't bring myself to do so, because although I didn't like this film it is still not as bad as films like a DARK HARVEST 2 : THE MAIZE or DEAD LIFE. |
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