John Rhys-Davies is the franchise king. He’s been in series like Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Aladdin, and Anaconda. The Anaconda series is a better representation on his career as a whole since he has done dozens of films like Ferocious Planet, where he plays a politician or a businessman where his suit, ill-fitting dentures and booming voice gives authority. The dude’s been in over 200 films and TV movies. I do love him.
In Ferocious Planet, he and a bunch of soldiers, scientists and bureaucrats end up in another dimension. Luckily, the planet (aka the ferocious planet) in this dimension has the same atmosphere, air pressure, gravity and no viruses or bacteria unknown to the immune system of the inter-dimensional travelers. Unluckily, the planet is home to savage carnivore creatures that have escaped a PlayStation 2 game.
I say creatures, plural, but it’s just one creature. It looks like a brundlefly version of a big carnivore dinosaur and an in insect. The design is quite cool, however, the insanely low-grade CGI dates the movie to the late 90s, rather than 2011, when it was actually made.
Most of the film is the travelers wandering about a jungle, trying to figure out how to get back to their dimensions with the handheld dimensional portal that runs on water for some reason. The dimension portal didn’t give the characters any extra dimensions. The level of character development is “these two are in love therefor you should be sad when one of them dies.”
Ferocious Planet is much more boring than the title suggests since it only has one occupant. I guess budget constraints made the production unable to afford to show anymore fauna, but the forest they shot the film in is also boring. Everything is brown and gray. Dull.
