This Land is a Lost Cause
Land of the Lost isn’t a movie, it’s an endurance test. This Will Ferrell comedy inspired (I hesitate to use the word ‘based’ – it just doesn’t fit) by the semi-classic Sid and Marty Kroff Saturday morning television show is about as bad as it gets, a tasteless and unfunny exercise in tedium that left me frustrated, annoyed and extremely un-entertained.
Will Ferrell stands small in Universal Pictures' Land of the Lost
For the life of me, the only thing I could think while watching it was who the living heck it was actually made for. For a picture sold as a summertime PG-13 effects-laden family comedy, the movie pushes both the boundaries of its rating and of good taste to their absolute breaking points. It’s all sexual innuendo, grotesque physical groping and a plethora of bathroom joke, the whole enterprise bad fratboy humor mixed with a bunch of CGI dinosaurs and rubber-suited lizard people.
Granted, that last thing is lifted straight from the show, but so what? Those silly Sleestaks produce maybe two giggles, if that, and for a movie already doing its best to pummel all the potential laughs into complete oblivion having arguably your only potentially amusing element only barely rise to the occasion isn’t exactly a good reason to plop down hard-earned money at the turnstile.
I can’t say much about Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas’s screenplay because, well, I can’t say I noticed the actual existence of one. The film barely exists, the filmmakers trying to cost along on Ferrell’s patented comedic style and popularity when the sketchiest of premises barely surrounds him. It is his show and, co-stars Danny McBride and Anna Friel or no, his show alone, and while I admit this is coming from someone who has never been the guy’s biggest fan to say he doesn’t even rise to my barely modest expectations would be a massive understatement.
I’ve been reasonably okay with director Brad Silberling in the past. I liked Moonlight Mile and didn’t hate City of Angels or 10 Items or Less as much as many others did. That said, while the rather forgettable Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events has its moments his live action version of Casper certainly does not, but even I never would have imagined something worse than that ghostly monstrosity.
But that is exactly what Land of the Lost is. Not since Van Helsing have a seen such a major studio production fall on its face so completely. Costing a reported $100-million to make, except for a few obvious set pieces it’s impossible to see where that money was spent. This is a bloated mediocrity so bad it makes other bad movies look like Oscar winners in comparison, and anyone thinking of going to it better be prepared for, not just disappointment, but anger-fueled incredulity, too.
Film Rating: 1/2ê (out of 4)
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