Land of The Lost

Welcome to another episode of The "D" List.

Today's review is Land of The Lost. Directed by Brad Siberling. Written by Chris Henchy & Dennis McNicholas.


Marshall, Will, and Holly
On a routine expedition
Met the greatest earthquake ever known.
High on the rapids
It struck their tiny raft.
And plunged them down a thousand feet below.

To the Land of the Lost.

That was the opening theme song to one of TV's cheesiest but classic saturday morning kid's show created by Sid and Marty Kroft.

The show was created in 1974 so I wasn't even a figment of my parents imagination. So I was introduced into the wonderful world of plastic toy dinosaurs, state of the art chroma key and sleestaks much later when the show was syndicated. After one episode I was hooked. I look back on the show now and I wonder what in the world possessed me to like this show but for it's time it was revolutionary with it's special effects and it's science fiction mythology. I just loved the dinosaurs.

So when it was announced that a Hollywood feature was planned I was very excited until I heard two words. Will Ferrell. At that instant I thought......"They already messed up the movie without shooting 1 take." Will Ferrell is a hit or miss guy with me. People worship his comic talents and let be real about this, he is a talented comic but there's something about him that I couldn't put my finger on until seeing this movie and then it hit me.

I'll get back to that shortly.

To the plot of this valiant effort. Our story takes us to the Today show where Dr. Rick Marshall is being interviewed by Matt Lauer about his work in time warps and black holes. As you can see in the trailer it doesn't go well and as a result he becomes a vagabond of the science world. He resorts to giving lectures to school kids when he's approached by Holly Cantrell played by Anna Friel. Holly is a huge admirer of Marshall and persuades him to continue his research on time warps. That's where they meet up with Will Stanton played by the very funny Danny McBride. Will runs one of those middle of nowhere tourist attractions. It's a mystery cave. Marshall, Holly and Will take the ride and just like the show they open up a time warp sending them to the land of the lost.

That's just the basic plot that explains how they get to the parallel universe. The story gets much more in depth from there with the introductions of the many popular characters. Cha-Ka, the ape like man. Grumpy, the very scary yet cool looking T-Rex. And last but certainly not least the ever popular Sleestaks, a race of lizard people that hiss and walk very very very S......L......O......W!
The movie spends acts 2 and 3 with Marshall, Holly and Will exploring the land, running into these new characters and trying to get back home.

There really isn't much else to this film and that disappointed me. Somewhere along the ride the script got flat and the jokes weren't landing. This brings me back my epiphany about Will Ferrell. If you go back to his past films. Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Blades of Glory, Semi-Pro and so on there is one undeniable similarity. Will Ferrell's character is exactly the same. There is no variety or re-imagination of the dumb hero.

Sadly that trend continues with Land of The Lost. Marshall is played just like all of Ferell's past characters and that takes away from what could have been a really funny film. There were several opportunities to really drop a major laugh on the audience but for some reason it just never happened. Maybe it was the script or Ferell just mailing it in. There were some really funny moments particularly when a giant crab comes after a wasted Marshall, Will and Cha-Ka. What happens was pretty funny.

There were some positives though. The special effects were amazing. Grumpy easily trumps the dinos in Jurassic Park. More importantly they writers did a great job of infusing elements of the TV show into the film from slight references to spot on recreations. They didn't miss anything. They paid close attention to the source material and used it to move the story along. They even had banjo music (which was the basic score of the show) and Marshall actually sings the theme song.

Very cool usage of the shows original elements but it wasn't enough to make this a worth your while venture.

On the 5 star scale. Land of the Lost gets 2.5 stars and a "Netflix It" recommendation. The movie was marketed as a family film but there are some adult references that might be questionable to younger kids. They are pretty harmless but visible so proceed with caution.

That's it for LOTL. My next review will be The Taking of Pelham 123. Tony Scott's attempt to return to the world of making good films and he almost did it.

Stay Tuned.

Until Next Episode....I'll Save You A Seat!

"D"