Land of the Lost [2009]

Land of the Lost [2009]

Perhaps I wasn't the intended audience for this one...but then I'm not sure what the intended audience actually was. Land of the Lost (2009) was considered one of the biggest failures of the cinematic year. I grew up on the wholesome cheesiness of the original Sid and Marty Kroft series (1974-1977), in which a family (Rick Marshall and his kids, Will and Holly) gets sucked into a time vortex while rafting and end up in prehistoric times, befriending apemen, fleeing from T-Rex, and trying to avoid the slow-moving Sleestaks. For this 2009 film, Will Ferrell plays erratic scientist Rick Marshall, with untested theories of how to travel to parallel dimensions. Circumstances combine to throw him, a scientist grad student named Holly, and a sleazy hustler named Will into an alternate history filled not only with dinosaurs and apemen, but also with kitschy things from past eras in Earth history. In typical Will Ferrell comedy style, there's lots of gross humor, but very little of the simple charm that made the TV series popular for generations of viewers. The production values are great -- the sets and effects work look great on this DVD, and the reintroduction of the comical Sleestak bad guys is fun. But the low-brow humor, and the sleaze factor sap what little entertainment value there might have been out of this film. I think I laughed only about 4 times during the entire movie, although the scene in which Marshall recreates the iconic theme song from the original series was fairly funny. All in all, this film is a big disappointment, and can only be recommended for die-hard Will Ferrell enthusiasts. Fans of the original TV show should avoid this movie at all costs and, instead, try to track down DVDs of the classic show. -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ Internet Movie Database entry for this film ] | [ official Land of the Lost web site ]

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