So I hear the original title of this movies was 'Tyrannosaurus Wrecks', which is totally ridiculous, like this movie was.  So the powers behind this thing decide to rename it for its Unites States release to 'The Eden Formula' which is a much more sensible title than 'Tyrannosaurus Wrecks', but the film is still totally ridiculous.  Before popping this DVD into to they player I was expecting it to be pretty bad, and I was expecting it to be bad enough to finally replace 'Supercroc' in the garbage corner.  And though 'The 'Eden Formula' was one hell of a messed up movie, 'Supercroc' stays right there in the garbage corner, at least for a couple more weeks, because even though the Eden formula was poor in just about every category, I was lovin' every minute of it.

So we got this bio-tech company, and they have this stud scientist by the name of Dr. Harrison Parker (Jeff Fahey) who is at the building late this particular evening with  his - hell, I don't think they ever did give this woman a title.  Anyway, this woman Rhonda, as played by the legendary Dee Wallace Stone, and the doc are getting their stuff together for a big presentation at the stockholders meeting.  You see doc has created this thing called the Eden Formula which apparently can regenerate cells and stuff.  So to prove the regenerative power of this new technology what do the powers at this company decide to regenerate?  Why a dinosaur you silly person!   1+1 still equals 2 right? 

Well though this is top secret stuff, it somehow got leaked out to our bad guys led by one James Radcliff (Tony Todd).  The mere presence of Tony Todd in your movie automatically doubles its watchability.  Radcliff and his crew of 'experts' bust up in the joint, kill up a few guards and override the locks.  Damn if that little nefarious move didn't just set this newly genetically engineered T-rex free.  So the T-Rex busts out the

compound and is roaming the streets pretty much eating everybody, while Radcliff and his crew look for the formula which the doc has secretly hidden in the toilet.  About the doc, sure he was cracking the books in school, but he was also cracking heads since he's a biochemist / Delta Force Army veteran... Just like Radcliff.  Can you say 'a history'.  Anyway Doc and his assistant, or whatever she, is have to find a way to stop these industrial terrorist AND a giant T-Rex AND do it on a shoestring budget.  I'm a-liking there chances.

Just because I loved this movie doesn't mean you will,of course.  It is possible that you may require that the movies you watch be shot with a camera that has a clean lens, because these were some of the muddiest images I've seen in some time.  You may require that your movies have halfway decent acting, Tony Todd excepted.  You may hear the lady who played E.T's mom utter the word 'fuck' and this may cause you to have a seizure.  You may look at our dinosaur and think that that's a fairly awesome special effect, if it was 1924.  I'm sure the dude that designed Mighty Joe Young is dead now, but if he was to wake up and see the dinosaur in 'The Eden Formula' I'm fairly certain he'd say 'damn that sucks... who knew I could still get work 70 years later.'  Yes my friends, you may require a certain level competence in you filmmaking, and for the most part I do to, but this one was special.

First there's Tony Todd, who I know he knows he's in a crappy movie, but he doesn't act like he's in a crappy movie though.  He delivers his lines with a such smooth convincing conviction that his co-workers are forced to to take their jobs seriously too or look like an idiot in the presence of this tireless thespian.   Watch any Tony Todd movie.  He takes whatever role he's given seriously.  There's also our dinosaur which could be the worst looking movie dinosaur of ALL TIME!  I’m talking ‘Land before Time’ bad.  But it worked because everything in this movie looked bad.  Plus it ate EVERYTHING.  You would think there would come a time when the thing would get full and stop eating humans, but no, it must have ate forty people in about an hour.  Some of the scenes were just too classic.  So the dino comes back to the lab after eating half of L.A. and our terrorist and heroes are just standing there looking at it while it eats one, and the next one and then the next one.  Somebody might want to think about running.  And why was this dinosaur, which you would think is a fairly classified, heavily guarded big secret thing, being guarded by the equivalent of Barney Fife?  1-2-3, dinosaur set free and on the loose eating L.A.  Not cool.  Though the movie was brief, there was only really only about 25 minutes of real movie as much of it was watching the dinosaur stomp around town and eat people.  He even ate a movie set.  They actually showed the whole scene that they were trying to film, fights, retakes, cuts and all, which must have took up a good fifteen minutes.  Hell, I enjoyed that too.

What can I tell you.  I'd love to trash this thing, and I guess I did, but that doesn't lessen my enjoyment of 'The Eden Formula'.  You've been warned what to expect if you luck upon this masterpiece, that rare film that is so bad on every conceivable level that like primordial ooze, it comes together to form something remarkable.  Watchable garbage.  And I can't be mad at it about that.