Land of the Lost

It stinks.

Ferrell stars as Dr. Rick Marshall - a failed scientist who has a questionable theory about time travel. While most think he is a moron, one Cambridge student, Holly (Anna Friel), believes he might be on to one of the biggest revelations in scientific history, so they head out on a routine expedition to test out some new equipment. Of course, this is when the greatest earthquake ever known strikes and sends Dr. Marshall, Holly and their raft captain, Will (Danny McBride), to a hole in the space time continuum where all times seem to mesh, and they have to battle dinosaurs and an evil Sleestak.

Can Dr. Marshall, Will and Holly find a way to return to their time?

Will the evil Sleestak take over the universe?

Will you root for Ferrell to be eaten by a dinosaur?

The Will Ferrell Comedy Train might be out of steam. While he and the team are looking to mine our childhood nostalgia to sell some tickets to the movie, what they find and present to us is fool’s gold.

The Land of the Lost TV show was a classic, campy, horribly written and cheaply produced TV program that any kid who grew up in the 70’s remembers with glee. Yet, after watching an episode a few weeks ago, I am old enough to toss the nostalgia out the window and realize I only liked it because you will like just about anything when you are 4 or 5 years old. Ferrell and the team should have realized this as well.

Land of the Lost is caught in a very strange in between place. It isn’t as cheaply produced and campy as the original, but it isn’t much of an improvement either, so you can’t say director Brad Silberling and the team have given it a more modern take or made Land of the Lost into a blockbuster movie for the 21st century, like Transformers was changed from a low budget cartoon into a special effects and action tour de force. Some sets, costumes and effects look cheap in an attempt to go for the original feel of the TV show, but some of the special effects, especially the dinosaurs, are better than average and computer generated, which defeats the purpose of the cheap sets, and highlights the conundrum the creative team is caught in.

Worst of all, Land of the Lost is a bad movie with bad performances and with a bad script from Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas (although Ferrell is one of those who will toss out the script while filming, so let’s not blame them too much). Ferrell seems to be going through the motions and doing the same old same old when we know he can do more than this. Instead of creating a character, he just acts dumb, yells a great deal, and, once in a while, gives us something to chuckle at.

Meanwhile, Henchy and McNicholas provide a thin story with plenty of pointless scenes that aren’t very funny, and the only modern edge they add is a series of off-color sexual innuendos, outright bawdy jokes and language that should deter any parent from taking a child less that 13-years old to this movie (of course, a good parent will deter a child of any age from seeing this dreadful film).

The funny moments in Land of the Lost are when Ferrell gives some Ron Burgandy-type exclamations, so let’s hope he is working hard on the Anchorman 2 script.

Land of the Lost is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content, and for language including a drug reference.