A small band of Spanish conquistadores, led by Hernan Cortes (Ian Ziering), are making their way down the coast of Mexico looking for their ship so they can return to Spain. They come across a tribe of Aztecs who are making a human sacrifice to a tribal god. They see that the Aztec temple is decorated with gold.
One of the Spaniards, Rios (Marco Sanchez), saves a native woman, Ayacoatl (Dichen Lachman), from being killed by the Aztec god, a Tyrannosaurus Rex. As he is saving her the other Spaniards attack the Aztecs but end up captured by the Aztec leader, Matlal (George Allen Gumapac). The slimy Shaman, Xocozin (Kalani Queypo), who was betrothed to Ayacoatl, believes that she was killed by the “Thunder Lizard” and wants to kill the Spaniards by sacrificing them to the Rex.
Friar Gria (Jack McGee) has been living with the Aztec’s for a number of years and has taught them Spanish. Ayacoatl, who happens to be chief Matlal’s daughter, and Gria come to the Spaniards' rescue and talk the chief out of sacrificing the men. Rios offers to kill the Rex if the chief will free them and allow them to go back to their ship. Cortes, wanting to save his own skin, promises that they will never return. The chief agrees.
Rios, Cortes and the men manage to kill the T-Rex but the reprieve is short lived. The T-Rex they killed was a male. It turns out that there is a female T-Rex up in the hills and she is looking for revenge.
In the meantime, Rio and Ayacoatl fall in love, sparking jealousy from Xocozin, as Cortes and some of the men kill the guard at the temple and rob it of its gold.
“Aztec Rex” AKA “Tyrannosaurus Azteca” was released in 2007 and was directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith. It is a science fiction Adventure film and a dinosaur movie. The film was produced by the Syfy channel.
Like most Syfy channel dinosaurs, it looks good, but doesn’t move good. Normally I shy away from comparisons to blockbuster movies but if you look at “Jurassic Park” which was done in 1993 and then look at “Aztec Rex”, which was done almost fourteen years later, you would think that the Syfy channel would have been able to develop CGI special effects that looked like they weren’t photo shopped from someone’s laptop.
Some have referred to the film as also being a comedy. It’s not. It’s just ridiculous. The blue-eyed Ian Ziering as a Spaniard, with a really bad wig, is not very convincing. Neither is the old English dialect that the characters sometimes forget to maintain. Although the film is not intentionally a comedy, it is funny. Mixed in with the camp is a lot of blood and intestines liberally strewn about the MesoAmerican landscape.
The entire film is a strange brew of cultures between the Aztecs and the Spaniards as well as the Mesozoic era in the middle of the late Neolithic and Iron Age. Not to mention the fact that the Spaniards, as well as the Aztecs, are speaking English with Shakespearian pronouns. It is unintentionally a lot of fun. And you also get dinosaurs.