Reptilian is South Korea’s needless attempt at creating a Godzilla-esque franchise like Japan, with a little all-American Independence Day thrown in for foul measure.
The derivative monster in question begins the movie as a mere dinosaur fossil, before he’s awakened by an electromagnetic force from an alien spaceship. Then he’s a living, fire-breathing killing machine, and dubbed something that sounds like “Young Gary” by the pesky humans. (It’s really Yonggarry, the original, overseas title.)
The aliens are some of the cheapest-looking the decade produced (they speak English, yet their mouths never move), and Young Gary isn’t any better. Since he’s entirely a CGI creation, he’s entirely phony-looking the duration of the movie. Because director Hyung-rae Shim (Dragon Wars: D-War) and his fellow crew members were bankrupt in the idea department, a second Young Gary emerges from the ground at the end, only so the two can battle each other.
The terribly bad acting — with terribly bad dialogue to match — keeps Reptilian from being a total snoozer. At one point, someone exclaims, “Compared to this guy, Godzilla is a pussy!” That’s untrue. —Rod Lott