The same year that George Lucas and his team developed groundbreaking special effects to bring audiences bizarre alien creatures and dramatic space battles in Star Wars, this US/Japanese co-production settled for far less advanced techniques to bring its dinosaurs to life, making it an embarrassingly clunky, yet still rather charming addition to the Lost World genre. Rivalling The Land That Time Forgot (1974) for worst movie dinosaurs of the decade, The Last Dinosaur features Tokusatsu-style men-in-rubber-suit monsters that are wholly unconvincing, but which will undoubtedly hold much appeal for fans of all things kaiju (the film's T-Rex even sounds like Godzilla).
Richard Boone stars as Masten Thrust, the wealthiest man in the world (but still unable to hire a decent graphic designer to make his company a decent logo), who leads an expedition to a lost world in the polar region, where he hopes to find a living Tyrannosaurus Rex. Joining him on the journey into the unknown are geologist Chuck Wade (Steven Keats), scientist Dr. Kawamoto (Tetsu Nakamura), photographer Francesca Banks (Joan Van Ark) and brave Masai tracker Bunta (Luther Rackley). After navigating their way to the prehistoric land in a laser borer craft, the team are attacked by a tribe of savage cavemen and face danger from a T-Rex that steals their transport and stomps their camp.
Entertaining for its sheer silliness, The Last Dinosaur features unrealistic miniatures, a laughably bad Pteranodon that endlessly circles the sky, and a triceratops that somehow conceals itself in a rock face to launch a surprise attack on the T-Rex. Other dumb moments include Francesca unknowingly standing on the back of a giant turtle, the T-rex stealthily sneaking up on its victims unheard, Masten ordering Bunta to find 200 yards of tough vine (that's 600ft, or 182 metres, but the ever resourceful Bunta comes through), the T-Rex being yanked off its feet by a tumbling boulder (attached to the dinosaur by that tough vine!), the speedy construction of a massive medieval-style catapult (I'm still not sure where that axe came from), and Chuck and Francesca miraculously transporting the steel (so presumably extremely heavy) borer over land to re-launch it in a lake.
5/10 - it's silly, it's stupid, it's technically inept, but it's also quite fun as a result.
