pal05052003
Turok is a very entertaining animated movie with lots of violence and bloodshed. It feels like The Lost World with Native Americans. The story focuses on vengeance. Because Turok killed a group of another tribe, 20 years later, the grown up son of one of the tribe sets out to massacre Turok's tribe. Turok having been banished from his tribe for his violence is forced to seek vengeance when he finds his brother killed, and his sister in law kidnapped. The story is a fast paced adventure story which starts out like a typical story about native tribes, but smoothly transitions into a story about dinosaurs. It is great to see feathered dinosaurs, and on particular scene is almost identical to a scene from Jurassic World. It is quite refreshing to see a movie where the protagonist is not Caucasian battling monsters with an ax. It may be too violent for kids, and not as broody as the Spawn animated series but it is very entertaining.
isaackiernan
Now, For those unfamiliar with the Turok franchise, Turok was a comic book series created in the mid fifties, that in the nineties got a major re-vamp when it became one of the best selling games of all time. "Turok: Dinosaur Hunter" was one of the first games I ever played as a child, and I have many fond memories of staying up late, and killing dinosaurs with my father. So naturally when I was walking through a local discount shop I was quite surprised to see "Turok: Son of Stone" on the DVD shelf. A movie of one of my favorite games as a kid? When did this come out? the $3.00 price tag made it a must buy, and when i got home that night I popped it in the DVD player and gave it a watch.After many years in exile, Turok returns to his tribe to find that they have been mercilessly slaughtered by the maniacal Chichak. Chichak chases Turok, his nephew, Andar, and his sister in law, into the fabled Lost Lands where Dinosaurs are still very much alive.And Needless to say, this movie was everything I hoped it would be. It is great fun, Great violence, and a great time all around. You get to see Turok slaughtering Dinosaurs, The Lost lands look perfect, and you can tell a lot of effort went into making this. It's not a perfect movie, but as a Turok movie it's as perfect as it could ever be.
dbborroughs
Great warrior Turok is banished after nearly killing members of his own tribe during a war. When years later he is entrusted with a task by his brother he ends up crossing over into a land where dinosaurs still roam.Animated Turok origin story is okay animation (saturday morning anyone?) and has a pace that is leaden. I thought I had been watching it for an hour and only ten minutes had passed. If it wasn't for the pacing this might have been something. I got half way into the movie and its limited animation and turned it off. I'll probably keep it as a sleep aide but thats it. What sad is that its very violent and bloody and the kids who'd dig the dinosaurs probably would have the disc pulled from them by their parents because of the nastiness.
Nenko Genov
Before I begin my review, let me say that I am not really familiar with the Turok comics or video games. So if you're a Turok fan you may feel that I lack the background knowledge on the history of these series. But I'm a huge dino-nerd anyway.The story is really quite simple - one day Turok and his brother encounter warriors from an enemy tribe, and defending a girl from their village (Turok's brother future wife) they get into a fight. Turok goes berserker mode and slashes through the enemies... and his brother. In his rage Turok almost kills his brother and the shaman of their tribe sends him into exile. Some 16 years later Turok is asked for help by his brother's son. Turok seems grumpy for being casted away and refuses to take part in the action. But later the boy returns and brings news that his tribe is almost wiped out. Turok takes his tomahawk and goes to help his bro, only to find him almost dead... and he eventually dies after he asks Turok to swear that he will take care for the boy and his mother. Back to the village the leader of the aggressors recognizes Turok's tomahawk - it was his father's and Turok took it years before at that battle in the beginning of the movie. The bad guy wants to avenge his father's death and goes on a rampage, trying to kill Turok. Going through a cave the Indians find themselves in The Lost Land (quite like Arthur Conan Doyle's Lost World) - where dinosaurs and prehistoric mammal beasts coexist with savage hordes of "The Missing Link" or something (you know, some huge ugly hard-to-kill humanoid hulks) and Indian tribes. The battle continues...There is not much of a dialog. No memorable quotes, no one-liners. I feel that the characters are somehow flat, they lack emotional depth and motivation. No inner struggle, no inside conflict. And no comic relief.The quality of the animation is above average, but far from great. Nothing you haven't seen - no innovative style or some recognizable character design. It's not bad, it's OK. And there are some nice looking Indian chicks :) The backgrounds are not really detailed, but on the other hand - what's there to be detailed? Rocks and cliffs? The dinosaurs are OK, but they lack color nuance and shading. And so do the characters in some scenes. And I forgot to mention - there is not a trace of some fancy 3D CGI cell-shading stuff, which I find good - old fashioned 2d works just fine for me. The only thing that seemed crappy were the computer generated flames for the fire effects in some scenes.There's plenty of action, gallons of animated blood and even some cut-off limbs. But that will only shock you if you've been watching Bambie all your life. The blood and the battles are no match for a good anime style fight, where everything is presented with some wicked camera angles, fast movements and dramatic pauses. There's an attempt for a showdown at the end of the movie, but it doesn't really work out like in the spaghetti westerns.All in all - the movie is worth watching, it has its moments, but it could have been much more. I enjoyed it because we rarely have the chance to see something more mature oriented and not-anime. If you're a fan of Ralph Bakshi's "Fire and Ice" or the "Heavy Metal" animated features I encourage you to check this one out, just keep in mind that it doesn't manage to entertain at their level. Somehow it lacks atmosphere and couldn't really captivate my imagination the way Filmation's "Flash Gordon" does for example.And if you're a dinosaur/comic/video game freak I'll advice you to get your hands on the "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" animated TV series based on Mark Shultz's "Xenozoic Tales" and "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" comics. That's the real deal!