Lame. There are two, different types of the word. There’s the lame that is almost sweet, endearing in the way the source of the incompetency attempts whatever it is attempting to do. This is a rare breed of lame, but one example of this definition of the word is the original Sid and Marty Krofft “Land of the Lost” television series.
The other type of the word is what is most commonly seen, where something is attempted without much conviction. As such, the attempt is mired in failure and drags the overall experience down so much as to create a sense of pity. I think you probably know where this is going.
The feature film remake of the “Land of the Lost” TV show is a reckless, unconvincing failure of such a project, a strange mixture of genres that never quite gets a foothold on any one in particular. It’s not as if the people behind it aren’t trying. They clearly are. I can’t speak for the screenwriters involved, that being Chris Henchy and Dennis McNichols, but it seems like this film went through a certain amount of stages.
In the beginning, it probably read like a big-budget reenactment of the TV show. A trio of explorers fall through a tear in the space-time continuum and end up in a fantastical land of intelligent dinosaurs, a half-man/half-monkey named Cha-Ka, and lizard people called Sleestaks. It could have been a winner on a certain level loaded with trivial references and, perhaps, an almost charming update to what has come before.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, it appears execs got their hands on the project and felt the need to “liven it up.” They brought Will Ferrell on board. A monster in the industry, Ferrell is sure to garner the film some much-desired box office returns. Of course, you can’t just throw Will Ferrell into the middle of a family film and just look the other way. As such, it seems an attempt was made to inject as much Sophomoric and outrageous humor into the mix as humanly possible. Where there was once a sweet, family-driven adventure now sits a lewd, noisy example of PG-13-rated comedy that likes to push the envelope without really pushing the envelope. We even get a mouthed F-bomb in there for good measure.
You can’t blame Ferrell for this mess. He’s doing exactly what he’s done a thousand times before. Much of the film’s humor, though, seems to be culminated from cut snippets of film from previous Ferrell movies the comedy is so similar. By the time Ferrell is blurting out exclamations like “Captain Kirk’s nipples!” I was out of the film’s reach altogether.
It’s not just Ferrell, either. Cha-Ka is played out like a sex-crazed horndog of a monkey-man, constantly reaching for Anna Friel’s breasts and talking about the beautiful women of his village. Friel, to her credit, seems genuine in her part, never once acting embarrassed at all to be a party to all of this. Danny McBride is, once again, playing Danny McBride to a tee. It works masterfully when he’s allowed to go all out, but the antics of Kenny Powers just aren’t accepted in a PG-13-rated comedy. His scenes feel like he is trying to swim with his hands tied. McBride is a funny man, but ‘Land of the Lost’ gives him hardly anything to do to demonstrate his talents.
All of this humor might work in a different film. Unfortunately, this is ‘Land of the Lost,’ and it’s not even that I am trying to work out this level of comedy against the original television series. This brand of comedy doesn’t work within the confines of this film alone. The styles clash fiercely, and it all creates a mixture of banality that is the death knell of any comedy.
But even injecting all of this ridiculously unnecessary comedy into this film can’t ruin it entirely. This is where you can blame the screenwriters, the director, and, yes, even the actors involved. Nothing seems to be working here. Whatever the exact opposite of a well-oiled machine might be, that is exactly what this film is.
The screenwriters seem to be making it up as they go along. A sidestory involving a Sleestak ruler bent on taking over the entire world gets touched on then completely swept aside for the next hour. Then, at the eleventh hour, it’s as if they were going back over their earlier pages, saw some of the plot-lines they had begun, and felt they had to finish them out.
There’s a minor plot-point involving fireworks that comes completely out of the blue late in the film, is even acknowledged by a character that it would have been helpful earlier in the film, and then brushed aside for a wholly unfunny sight gag.
The handling of Ferrell’s Rick Marshall is also jerky. Sometimes, actually most of the time, he comes off like a complete numbskull who doesn’t even know which way is up let alone how to rip doorways between universes. Other times, he’s a brilliant scientist who knows exactly what to do. This level of split personality in the character is minute, but it serves as one, more distraction from the rest of the movie.
The direction of the film is all messed up, as well. Never mind the fact that the special effects are atrocious. They are, but that is not the pinnacle of this film’s problems in the execution department. Director Brad Silberling (‘Moonlight Mile’ and ‘Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events’) doesn’t quite seem to know how he wants to handle the material. Sometimes, the shots are smooth as silk, and you almost feel you’re in the hands of a gifted cinematographer. Other times, particularly in certain action scenes around the middle of the film, he uses a hand-held running alongside Marshall and the other two. Do we really need Greengrass-type shots in a remake of ‘Land of the Lost’? I think you already know the answer.
To it’s credit, very little, though it may be, ‘Land of the Lost’ is able to make us laugh a time or two. There are a few surprisingly funny moments, and these stand out like giant waterholes in the middle of an arid desert. There aren’t many of them, and they are hell to get to, but, once we actually find ourselves in the middle of one of them, for those few, brief moments, we can let out more than a slight sigh of relief.
Despite these waning moments that don’t amount to much in the long run, ‘Land of the Lost’ is a trainwreck in so many ways. Everything about it works towards the exact opposite reaction that seems to have been intended. It’s boorish antics don’t make it funny, it’s cheap sight gags don’t make it lively, and neither Will Ferrell nor Danny McBride can save it from itself. It’s a cheap reenactment of an already cheap television show, and its lack of charm puts it on the wrong side of lame from beginning to end.
Overall: 1.5 out of 5
