I admit that my familiarity with the Land of the Lost television series is only passing at best, but I do know enough to confidently say that it’s nothing like this film. For one thing, the movie is definitely not aimed at kids. Although it maintains a bubblegum color palette and a flimsy plot that would entice only toddlers who know no better, the humor is sometimes tame and childish, sometimes crude and sophomoric. My guess is that it was conceived as some sort of Journey to the Center of the Earth type of family film, only to have it hijacked by the frat pack brigade during the shoot. It’s a strange strange strange movie, somewhere between bizarrely amusing and annoyingly forced.
The original show followed the ongoing adventures of Rick Marshall and his two kids Will and Holly as they are trapped in another dimension, looking for a way home. There, they encounter dinosaurs, fight off a pesky T-Rex named Grumpy, befriend a humanoid primate named Cha-Ka and fend off a race of lizard people called Sleestaks. The movie doesn’t change any of this (not even the Sleestaks' design). Instead, it just swaps the characters to self-serving jackasses, like dumping Judd Apatow’s slackers into a lame family holiday movie, with Will Ferell and Danny McBride both excavating very familiar territories. McBride as a pathetic louse pretending to be a tough guy still has some traction left, but not when he’s not allowed to go full-on obscene in a PG-13 movie. Ferrell’s antics, on the other hand, is just unbearably tiresome. At this point, who is still laughing at him prancing around in short shorts, really?
Rick Marshall (Ferrell) is an egotistical idiot—basically every Will Ferrell character ever, once again only switching occupation—whose reputation is ruined when his disastrous Today Show appearance (against Matt Lauer, playing himself) becomes the laughingstock of YouTube. Holly (Anna Friel) isn’t his daughter, but a nubile young woman obsessed with Marshall's work and urging him to get out of his post-Lauer slump. On their field research, they suffer the company of Will (McBride), a sleazy and cowardly redneck carnival ride owner. Even the movie’s Cha-Ka (played by Saturday Night Live staff writer and Lonely Island member Jorma Taccone, virtually unrecognizable under heavy monkey make-up/costume) is a frisky little prick, whose running gag throughout the movie is that he likes to grab Holly’s boobs.
Featuring dodgy CGI and an unconvincing timeless world, the movie drops the ball in creating a unique and diverse world of its own, with every action set piece going the most obvious way. Rick describes this world as one where “the past, present and future meet,” but the film is too lazy to take advantage of that liberating visual cue and goes for the obvious apocalyptic look, with fallen famous landmarks half-buried in sand and dinosaurs stomping around (only the dangerous carnivorous ones, of course).
Utterly wasted is the excellent score by current golden boy Michael Giacchino (Star Trek, Pixar’s Up), which blends a modern adventure theme with the kind of retro jungle beats that just sounds fitting for a movie called Land of the Lost. That's obviously the old-meets-new dynamic the film wants, but its way of doing it is to have the sense of humor hop back and forth between masturbation jokes and cartoon slapstick. One minute they have a T-Rex threatening people with a giant walnut, the next they’re sitting around doing drugs and daring each other to make out.
I admit, there’s something oddly magnetic about that dichotomy, but ultimately it gets irritating all the same. Land of the Lost resembles a live-action Adult Swim show minus the irony and retro effects; not to mention six times the length. At least those shows have an aura of rebellious not-giving-a-damn to them. Taken at face value—that is, the fact that someone is actually presenting this as a real product—Land of the Lost is just plain old stupid.
"Land of the Lost" opens June 5, 2009 and is rated PG13. Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi. Directed by Brad Silberling. Written by Chris Henchy & Dennis McNicholas. Starring Danny R McBride, Will Ferrell, Anna Friel, Jorma Taccone.
