The Valley of Gwangi

This story is very weak and basically just copies, especially in the end, what you could see in "King Kong", but when you look at this, it is still a film that is responsible - in terms of special effects - Ray Harryhausen, who once again showed that he was a genius master who brought creatures to life like no one else, even compared to digital effects. (10/07/2015)

It's hard to find a more perverse combination than mixing the world of cowboys and Mexicans with dinosaurs. Director O'Connolly attempted this together with visual effects legend Ray Harryhausen, resulting in a somewhat schizophrenic blend of western and Jurassic Park. You cannot think too much about the logic of the plot, otherwise you would hardly be able to accept the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century, somewhere in the Wild West there is an unexplored territory where prehistoric lizards still live and pterodactyls never fly outside it. What’s important here is one name: Ray Harryhausen and his visual effects (known from, for instance, Clash of the Titans). In this respect, punishingly, almost nothing happens for the first hour, but with the subsequent journey you’ll enjoys plenty of dinosaurs and it all builds up with the rampage of a very overgrown lizard in a city. Harryhausen's signature is clearly legible, some of the effects are good, others less so. There are amusing scenes, for example the almost "Ed-Woodesque" sequence of the fight with the pterodactyl, when one of the characters moves the model to make it look like the pterodactyl is defending itself, and also how they catch a tyrannosaurus with a lasso. I just didn't understand the intention of the creators, why most of the lizards have a garish purple colour, but that's a detail. This film is a must for Harryhausen fans, which I count myself among, although the first half is rather boring and the logic limps on both feet. (06/01/2004)

The two words "guilty pleasure" fit this review like no other. The Valley of Gwangi is such a magical film that I wondered about it myself. Cowboys and dinosaurs? Actually, why not? We've already seen cowboys and robots (Westworld), cowboys and steampunk (Wild Wild West) and soon we'll see Cowboys & Aliens. Gwangi has absolutely everything in it. The first half of the film impressed me with a quite funny plot, sympathetically drawn characters and (of course) Harryhausen's special effects, which do not draw all the attention onto themselves, but only successfully illustrate the plot. You just see a couple of the main characters watching a miniature "horse", then you see a bunch of hunters chasing the tiny horse through the desert a few dozen minutes later... And you believe it. A perfect illusion. And once the dinosaurs come on the scene... Wow. Steven Spielberg must have been very impressed by what starts to happen, and it's no wonder that some scenes were done almost verbatim in Jurassic Park (the tyrannosaurus appearing out of nowhere to grab a smaller dinosaur, which the cowboys are amazed by) and The Lost World (the dinosaur being caught in a lasso). The finale is reminiscent of King Kong for a change, but unlike that film, it is purely action-oriented (and again, the inspiration for Spielberg's Jurassic duet was there) and lacks any thought. Which is fine. The Valley of Gwangi is a perfect, skillfully made popcorn movie with great music that I fell in love with starting today. Five pure stars and one of the deepest notches on Harryhausen's belt. (05/28/2011)