Movie Review - 'Land of the Lost'

Land of the Lost Starring Will Ferrell, Anna Friel, and Danny McBride Directed by Brad Silberling Rated PG-13

There is not a lot of connective tissue between the Land of the Lost of the 1970s and the new Will Ferrell film of the same name. It's not a coincidence that they share a name, because the new movie is inspired by the Sid & Marty Krofft show of my childhood, but while that was unintentionally funny the new spin is unintentionally unfunny. We get to know a Marshall, Will, and Holly, though they bear no resemblance to the original characters, and there are Sleestaks, the race of lizard people that were a lot like zombies with inoperable bows and arrows. Cha-Ka, too.But the film isn't campy or cheesy; it's a $100 million exercise in how not to update a TV show. Ferrell plays scientist Rick Marshall, whose life work is something called quantum paleontology. In essence, Marshall believes that be enhancing tachyon energy, we can rip holes in the space time continuum, creating a world where past, present, and future all bleed together. The landscape, filled with dinosaurs, convertible cars, the Golden Gate Bridge, and other relics from everywhere, is the only part of the movie that completely works. Marshall is accompanied on his quest by Holly (Anna Friel), a former doctoral candidate at Cambridge and seemingly the only person in the world who believes Marshall's theories have any merit, and Will (Danny McBride), a white trash proprietor of a desert tourist trap that actually holds the key to unlocking Marshall's hypothesis. McBride is kind of a tested quantity now; he pretty much gives you the same thing every time. It's funny in spots but hardly novel. Friel is something of a discovery for most moviegoers. Outside of her work on the short-lived Pushing Daisies, there's not much familiar on her resume. She clearly comes out of this mess with the fewest bumps and bruises. As I watched Land of the Lost, I wondered if it would have been funnier with less obvious jokes, like a man being swallowed whole by a T. Rex only to emerge...uh...on the other side. Rather than giving the charm of the original story a bigger stage, Land of the Lost has rummaged through the specifics, changed what it wanted to change, and hoped with Will Ferrell rolling the dice that something funny would happen. It's a bit like taking the Xs and Os of Vince Lombardi's famed toss sweep and, changing the players, expecting it to be a hail mary. This movie isn't a disaster, and in a few scenes, you can see that the creative component here is on the right track. But the film doesn't satirize 70s TV, its language is far too crude and suggestive for its more family-friendly marketing, and the influences it does bring to the table are a bit all over the road. So maybe you can't put the past, present, and future together, after all.

Comments

[scott]

It's obvious why Will would want to make this film, after all, he had such great success with his last transfer from television, Bewitched. This dude's credibility is in the trasher, probably for good.

[Psyko Tek]

Hey Will, Eddie Murphy called
You wanna do a movie?

never liked most of his stuff anyway
the dude can't carry a movie
but as a supporting character in a comedy he can bring it