Land of the Lost

Several days after viewing Land of the Lost, my recollection of it is fizzy, like pop rocks in the corner of my mind... little dream (or nightmare) glimpses and fragments of jokes and visuals, gags and goofs. If I didn’t have a notebook full of gibbering scribbles about dinosaur pee and A Chorus Line, I wouldn’t be entirely sure I saw the movie.

Nor am I sure that isn’t what the filmmakers intended. A big-screen, big-budget remake of the colossally weird and goony Saturday morning ‘70s TV show, this new Land of the Lost is produced by the original’s Sid and Marty Kroft, those day-glo pushers of tripped-out foam-rubber hallucinations; directed by Brad Silberling (Lemony Snicket), and stars Will Ferrell, himself a pasty, strutting vision of Saturday cartoon id run amok.

Nearly every reviewer has mentioned his or her personal connection to the Krofts’ original show, a bubble-gum version of Planet of the Apes that actually maintained some of PofA’s lurking desperation and dread. The old Land of the Lost may have been pretty high cheese, produced on a low-rent budget, but to an eight-year-old it was brimming with an odd ‘70s sci-fi pre-Star Wars pessimism and alienation. It screwed you right up even before those Sleestaks reared their hissing rubber lizard heads.

The new Land of the Lost rearranges a few of the original series’ elements—instead of the Khaki Family Robinson of Rick Marshall and his children, Will and Holly, the film’s Marshall (Ferrell) is joined by a British grad student named Holly (Anna Friel of TV's Pushing Daisies) and a slack-jawed carny barker named Will (Danny McBride, of Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express and HBO’s Eastbound and Down).

But the basics remain: Marshall et al are fiddling with his time-traveling tachyon whatsamajigger in a yellow inflatable raft (it’d take too long to explain…) on a routine expedition when they’re caught up the greatest earthquake ever known and flushed down a time-space whirly pool into the land of the lost—a sort of temporal storage closet inhabited by dinosaurs, ape-folks, and of course those hissing Sleestaks (now with extra CGI teeth, to make sure today’s jaded tots are as creeped out by them as we were).

Needless to say, this new version is played for laughs, or at least that was the plan. Still, a heads-up if you’re taking the kiddies to LotL this week: not only is it sprinkled with smutty, sniggering teenage sex and drug jokes (by the second act, several characters’ hands have been down their pants and breasts have been groped), but all of a sudden in the middle there’s a velociraptor attack that, in terms of brutal dino-intensity, is straight out of Jurassic Park. You’re groovin’ along, half-laughing at Farrell and the film’s unrelenting goofiness and then out of nowhere, wham, there’s a severed limb being tossed around.

In the land of the lost, the trio hook up with the film’s surprise MVP bench player. Every big, bloated summer action-comedy has one cast member who actually shows up to play hard. As ape-boy Cha-ka, Jorma Taccone (one of Andy Samberg’s Lonely Island partners in crime on the SNL Digital Shorts) swings rings around his higher-paid comedic co-stars, and Cha-Ka scampers away with most of the movie’s big laughs.

Anna Friel holds up as well as can be expected under such conditions—with her fine straight-gal comedic timing and sparkling Karen-Allen eyes and smile, let’s hope she’s destined for better (not bigger) things down the road. As for the great up-and-coming Danny McBride, we'll just call this part of paying his Hollywood dues. Sure he's done fearless, aggressively funny work in the margins of other films, but sooner or later you have to step up and subject yourself to the rigors and shame of doing a big summer movie just for the cash and exposure.

Which brings us to Land of the Lost's marquee star. While I still enjoy his work (yep, including Semi-Pro and Step Brothers), Will Ferrell is clearly heading into the Disenchanted phase of his film career. That point where a crazed comic actor who rose out of the sketch comedy trenches to achieve super-stardom finds him or herself uninterested in just doing the same bits, playing the same character, selling the same soap.

Bill Murray hit it after Ghostbusters, Robin Williams and Jim Carrey seems to continually slide in and out of it, and Mike Myers has been wallowing in it for almost a decade. In other words, it’s about time for Farrell to go off and star in a dark vanity project about a serial killer or ennui-ridden husband… or both.

Ferrell’s a pro and he shows up for Land of the Lost, but you sense his heart’s just not in it. His shtick continually feels like it—and he—wants to be in a different movie. Sure, all the old familiar Ferrell belly laughs (and belly shots) are here, and he hits his marks like a vaudeville pro flawlessly cranking out the same routine every night. But you keep sensing that he and McBride—two masters of dumb deadpan—were trying mightily to get into comic sync, to get the riffing working. Instead, too often the left-field ad-libs wander into dead ends, as if Ferrell just couldn’t stay interested in them long enough to make them really work.

Summer movie season is famous for churning out these sorts of big-star, big-budget, broad-appeal action-comedies: cobbled together by committee, randomized to hit specific demographic and marketing tie-in beats, just a parade of heavily promoted stuff happening, usually for no good reason. Light, full of holes, mostly useless and taking up space, these types of projects come off like Styrofoam: The Movie. And they tend to lurk just outside the range of your ability to describe or evaluate.

What’s Land of the Lost about? Hmmm, like so many of these movies—especially those retro-rigged out of the bones of long-past sitcoms and kids’ shows—it seems to be about nothing more than just keeping sugar-buzzed children and adults distracted for 100 minutes.

Is Land of the Lost any good? No, of course not. It’s so scattered and disjointed, so hit and miss, there’s absolutely no way for your higher brain functions to find a grip on it. Bits are amusing here and there (and a few achieve actual funniness), but those moments come and go like mutant fireflies humming around a lumbering, dim-witted dinosaur.

Is Land of the Lost awful? Naw. It never slows down or stops fidgeting long enough to bore or offend. And it’s such a wobbling blender full of pop-culture references and silly comedic gags high and low, funny and flat, that you’ll probably keep chuckling between the sighing and the head-scratching.

(My sister--with whom I share a sense of humor--called to say she and her kids thought it was hilarious, quoting lines and gags that, out of context, made me giggle in recollection, as if they were coming from a more enjoyable movie than the one I saw.)

I know what some of you will say: It’s a silly summer kids’ movie made from an even sillier kids’ TV show, just "enjoy it for what it is." But that’s bunk. Land of the Lost has several very talented performers. It has a decent director. It has a relentless sense of gee-whiz adventure. It has dinosaurs. And they spent 100 million freakin’ bucks on it. It didn’t have to be Lord of the Rings, but it could have been a really clever, funny and cool silly summer kids’ movie. (The Austin Powers movies would be an example of stupid fluff that’s actually smart and creative.)

As I said, you can’t help but think some of this is intentional on the part of Silberling, Ferrell, and the Krofts. At times Land of the Lost feels like an elaborate hoax: We got a studio to give us truckloads of cash to make this movie as nonsensical, cheesy, and uneven as possible, and we got you all to haul your rugrats to it and pay $10 a piece to be bemused, baffled, and bewildered.

I suspect they were trying to take the odd camp of the TV show and use Ferrell's brand of manic, nonsensical humor to alchemize it into something truly weird, wild, and maybe wonderful. But along the way, that vision just never came together (adding to the confusion of exactly who this movie is and isn't for)--derailed perhaps by the need to have fast-food tie-ins and demographic marketing hooks.

As a result, between now and the inevitable sequel, I’m guessing most of us will simply forget Land of the Lost ever existed.

I'm now Twittering at http://twitter.com/lockepeterseim as lockepeterseim. Stop by and see what I'm watching at any given moment and hear the excuses I come up with when I'm procrastinating about writing.

Comments

[Tom]

This movie is the biggest waste of time and money that the theaters have to show. See anything else. You will be happy to miss this one.

[susan smith]

if you are going to the movies to nit pick at them, not just sit down and relax for an hour and a half,enjoying not having to have or keep a 'conversation' going,entertain someone etc. then don't freakin go...some of these critics need to get a life cause these types of movies aren't THAT SERIOUS...GEEZ!I haven't seen as I wait for the d.v.d to come out so I don't 'waste' $10. at the theatres anymore but I love Will F in all of his movies,sketches etc. and I also loved the 'cheesey' saturday morning show land of the lost...yes the sleestak monsters were kinda scarey actually but the story line was as good as anything else...lets talk about 'gilligans island' yuck....I was pretty young when everyone loved that show and it was extremely annoying to me...anyhow, all I'm saying is chill....its just a movie,oh yea and don't leave comments on stuff like this if you really don't have one you just want to be a part of something..."yea i hated it too..."I usually don't but my Will got dissed and it made me mad...comedy's to me shouldn't be over criticized (sorry about all the bad spelling)they either made you laugh or they didn't....

[Livia]

My friend who also loves Redbox, saw this film in the theatre. My friend has a person in the family who works at a locale movie theatre and that friend saw it at least two months ago. I wanted to see this film, Land of the Lost, really bad so did my friends and so did I. I didn't have enough time to see this film in theatre since I was busy doing stuff and seeing other movies that came out in the theatre, so I will be patient and wait until it is up for rent!

Anyway, when will this movie will be up for rent at Redbox?

[moviegoer123]

I just saw this film Land of The Lost today and rented it from Redbox. I absolutely loved the film, overall. It's so similar to The Time Traveler's Wife but different plot, characters, and etc cetera. It was a hilarious throughout, there was profanity in it but it kind of made it funnier in a way. I would give this film A- at least, not an F because it was great. I wish I saw the movie in the theatre. I will probably re-watch this again, I might get the DVD because it's that good.

Will Ferrel did awesome, it's the best perfomance I've seen him to and Anna Friel did great, she carried the comedy and the romance well.

It was absolutely great movie and I absolutely enjoyed the film!! LOL! :)

[moviegoer123]

Also, I like the cheesy talk show in the beginning and end, it made the movie even more hilarious! There were a lot of cheesy parts throughout with comedy and it just made it so hilarious, I was laughin' while I was watching it.

Great movie! I'm glad that I rented it at least with my family member. This is the best comedy I've seen this year!