So Bad It's Good Rating:
Back when The Land Of The Lost movie was released in theaters, I got a chance
to see the old episodes of the original 1970s series in a marathon on the
Chiller Channel, and something occurred to me. I used to watch this series when
it aired on Saturday mornings--along side Isis and Scooby Doo cartoons--and I
enjoyed it very much as a kid. While watching this show for the first time as an
adult, I was struck by the limitations that LOTL faced--namely, its low budget,
and the confines of the special effects of that era. I recall thinking that, if
done right, The Land Of The Lost would make a great movie today. Think of the
endless possibilities that were now on hand, thanks to the computer-generated
effects we have today, and how much more epic, and majestic, a Land Of The Lost
adventure could be with just the right popcorn movie tone in the hands of a
proficient storyteller.
But oh, no….we can’t have that, now, can we?
Instead of an exciting, reinvigorated tale of high adventure for the entire family, we get a Will Ferrell movie. When I placed this in the machine to watch it, I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I would be watching another one of his comedies--which, on average, were mildly amusing at best, and very stupid at worst. But, as a comedy, Land Of The Lost isn’t even remotely funny. I mean, really--there was nothing in here that even made me smile. It was so unfunny that whenever they strained to make a lame joke work, it became unpleasant to watch. The humor is extremely crude for children, but too immature for adults to enjoy. And Ferrell and his co-stars, Danny McBride and Anna Friel, who are both normally very good, don’t even seem to want to be here.
Another problem is that Ferrell is playing his usual shtick of the imbecilic
moron who’s completely clueless as to what’s going on around him--which was cute
the first 500 times he’s played it this way, but it’s now wearing a little thin.
Add to this the fact that Danny McBride is playing essentially the same type of
idiot as Ferrell, and you got two idiots for the price of one. Even Anna Friel
has to dumb her character down so as not to outshine her male co-stars, and the
result is a bunch of buffoons who stumble their way in and out of trouble; yet
director Brad Silberling still tries to make the viewer root for these airheads
during the impressively-staged action sequences. That’s the main problem right there: the film’s tone is just wildly uneven.
It tries to be a flat-out comedy, a parody of the original series, only it’s so stupid (filled with constant unfunny references to Chorus Line, for some reason) that the film feels more like it’s viciously lampooning its source material, especially in the unfunny scene when Ferrell sings the original series’ theme song on a banjo around a campfire. When he’s unknowingly bitten by a humongous bug, for some reason Friel’s and McBride’s characters never even warn him. It makes you wonder just what the cast and crew of this flick were really up to. I realize the original series wasn’t high art, not by any stretch of the imagination. But, at its best, the original Land Of The Lost is still better than this major waste of time. We may now never get a big-budget, revisionist Land Of The Lost movie, but at least the original series has been preserved on home video, where it can be enjoyed for what it is: a fun family adventure.
--SF
Main Review Page | Back To The Turkey Page | Buy Land of the Lost On DVD
