Quick, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the title “Jurassic Games?” If you said a mash-up of Jurassic Park and The Hunger Games, you’re not off by much, but I’d describe this film, written and directed by Matt Bellgardt, as closer to The Running Man plus something like Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. It follows Anthony ( Adam Hampton ), an innocent man convicted of killing his wife, as he is pitted against 9 other convicts, vying for one last chance at freedom.

And that’s not even the worst of it. The games are a one-way ticket out of jail, either via unconditional release or via lethal injection. That’s right, lethal injection. The dinosaurs aren’t real, you see, the Jurassic Games are a virtual reality experience for contestants, complete with actual pain, but death comes via a quick shot of some unnamed death juice to the neck. Occasionally the film shifts its focus away from its contestants to the production side and the audience watching at home. We get a glimpse into the inter-office politics, with the show’s producer discussing the strategy for roping in as many viewers as possible with the host ( Ryan Merriman ), who ends up being one of the film’s more robust characters, presenting a striking image with his suit and Mad Max style iron dinosaur skull helmet and a smooth-talking condescension that fits the character of a reality TV host remarkably well. There is also a subplot about protestors that want to see the games ended and this does factor into the plot in a major way, but this concept isn’t explored very deeply.

Jurassic Games doesn’t try very hard to transcend expectations, but it manages to live up to most of them. The acting is bombastic, if rarely convincing, populated by a cast of characters plucked from a rogues’ gallery of villainous stereotypes, from the bomb waiting to go off introvert to the hedonistic cannibal, everyone seems as though they’re desperately soaking up the limited screen time that they’re granted. Outside of their common goal to get out alive, there aren’t really any character arcs or even motivations outside of Anthony’s which don’t go much deeper than trying to make it back to his kids. Beyond this, there is little indication that any of the other characters have lives outside of being prisoners, so there isn’t a whole lot of impact when any of them die.

The story isn’t why you watch a movie called Jurassic Games, though, is it? You come to watch a man kick a raptor in the face and at least in one glorious scene, we are given everything that the heart could desire as Ren ( Tiger Sheu ), a political dissident of some sort that killed a senator and otherwise isn’t given much to do, fights off a horde of raptors using nothing but a steel chain and some incredible kung fu skills that Sheu gained while studying at the Beijing Wushu Academy. The film struggles to match the heights of that scene, with many of the encounters of the less than hospitable fauna revolving around the characters being chased or simply consumed by opportunistic scavengers, it still manages to keep things exciting with a wide array of designs both historical and fantastic accompanied by a thundering musical score.

The visuals are for the most part convincing with some of the CG approaching big-budget standards, but it’s not without its glaring inconsistencies. The creature models look like they were most likely purchased rather than produced in house, which leads to some like the raptors and tyrannosaurus looking really good while others like the stegosaurus and a swarm of carnivorous insects being of an obviously lower quality. There’s also some wonky compositing and each of the contestants has an exploding collar (which seems unnecessary given that they’re in a virtual world with the show being in control of who lives or dies at any point) which explodes into a comically underwhelming puff of flame and smoke with no indication of the head that was just there a second ago when it goes off. Outside of the technical issues, many of the creative choices don’t make a great deal of sense, with the show’s viewers all seen watching it in bars on conventional TV screens when fully-immersive virtual reality clearly exists, with some of the displays even having chunky, visible subpixels and one even displaying scan lines which only show up on old CRTs. Maybe I’m putting a bit too much focus on some of these smaller details, but the fact that they went through extra work to make things look vintage in a film clearly set in the future struck me as odd. I will say, however, that the show’s set itself looked quite nice, featuring detailed holographic displays and lots of that luminescent blue we all associate with the future.

If the title calls out to you, if you can’t wait for the next Jurassic Park and need your dinosaur action fix, you’ll probably have some fun with Jurassic Games. There is very little depth to the narrative and the action could have been more frequent and engaging, but it does enough to fill a niche in the action movie genre that doesn’t feel like it’s been overly-exploited.