INVISIBLE RAPTOR Review

Dumb comedies come in several varieties. The worst are those that don’t realize what a mess they’re making before unleashing them on unsuspecting viewers. The others are intentionally designed to be stupid, and can range from brilliant to moderately amusing. INVISIBLE RAPTOR falls within the last group. The title alone tells you where it’s headed, so here’s how to watch it:

Step one is to suspend a heaping dung-load of disbelief as to whether such a creature could exist, and why the hell any scientists would raise it. Once you leap that hurdle and buy the premise, you know what must occur. It will escape and start chomping the local populace, while a handful of feckless protagonists stumble around trying to contain or kill it. No mystery as to what must occur, but there are a few treats in what happens along the way. And plenty of comically gory bits, from splattering eviscerations to spurting beheadings in glorious colors.

Mike Capes plays a sullen, disgraced paleontologist, reduced to putting on shows for kids at a dinosaur theme park with his dufus partner (David Shackleford). Think of them as a bargain-basement Simon Pegg and Nick Frost pairing. His old flame and former colleague (Caitlin McHugh) just happens to show up on the day the metaphoric excrement hits the ventilation system. Since the eponymous menace can’t be seen, no one believes their warnings, despite the number of people and animals that start vanishing. To the writers’ (Capes and Johnny Wickham) credit, they manage to sprinkle the proceedings with a slew of references to similar movies and pop culture. For me, the highlight was a TV commercial about 25 minutes in.

The three leads are relatively unknown to me, although John Stamos got to know one of them well enough to land a new spouse. I’ll let you guess which of the trio it was. But another asset came in brief appearances from some more familiar faces. Sean Astin leads that group. Veteran character actors Richard Riehle and Larry Hankin get their chances, too. Riehle plays the lazy, skeptical local sheriff, sporting a full white beard that arguably gives him the most becoming look of his career. Hankin – a face you’ll recognize even if you don’t know his name – gets a primo moment near the end.

Set your expectations low enough and leave your thinking cap behind. That’ll maximize your chuckle and ugh! gratification levels.

INVISIBLE RAPTOR opens Friday, Dec. 5, in theaters and on digital formats.

RATING: 1.5 out of 4 stars