Land of the Lost

• The MovieSet Ultimate Review of 'Land of the Lost'

  Published on: June 5, 2009

  By Jeff Otto

  Movie: Land of the Lost

  Synopsis: Will Ferrell is a washed-up paleontologist relegated to teaching grade school children after being publicly humiliated by Matt Lauer. When a student of his teaching tracks him down and urges him to continue his unusual research, they wind up sucked into a space time vortex and entering the land of the lost.

  Stars: Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, Anna Friel, Jorma Taccone

  Written by: Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas

  Directed by: Brad Silberling

  Distributed by: Universal Pictures

  Opening on: June 5, 2009 nationwide

  

  EXPECTATIONS

  What I'd Seen - Will Ferrell being chased by a T-rex, basically what looked like Jurassic Park as a Ferrell vehicle.

  What I'd Heard - It's based on a cult series from Sid and Marty Krofft which, I must admit, I had almost no familiarity with beforehand.

  What I Wanted - Hey, it's Will Ferrell, Danny McBride and dinosaurs. I'm not looking for high art, just some summer escapism and some good ole' physical comedy.

  EXPERIENCE

  What Turned Me On - LOTL gets off to a great start. No one handles utter humiliation better then Ferrell. The early scenes of the film take us through Dr. Rick Marshall's (Ferrell) sad, public meltdown until we find him eagerly explaining his unpopular theories to a bunch of bored-looking grade schoolers.

  Ferrell and McBride make a good comedy team and spend the majority of the movie pulling every bit of material they can from the bizarre environment. The humor is much lewder than I expected, especially for a PG-13 release, but what can I say, inappropriate humor always makes me chuckle. Yes, I'm that immature.

  What Turned Me Off - The CG effects look bad, and not in the kind of kitschy way that is intended as any sort of reference to the series. They are the kind of bad CG effects that studios somehow seem to think pass as good, or at least the ones they are willing to pawn off on an undemanding public. I know this is a comedy, but since Universal blew so much dough on this movie, it's hard to figure why the effects look so much worse than Jurassic Park did a decade and a half ago.

  AFTERMATH

  I Left Thinking - LOTL could have been way worse. Ferrell saves it from disaster and deserves the lion's share of credit for any financial success this movie might achieve. Still, Ferrell's done better and nothing you'll see in this movie will stick with you for long afterwards.

  I Left Saying - I can't figure out the point of remaking a show that almost no one in the core demographic remembers. Remake is the buzz word for studio executives right now, but shouldn't it at least be a property that fans would care enough to seek out? I've yet to find any LOTL fanatics intrigued by this one strictly due to their allegiance to the original series.

  Expiry Date - This one is purely disposable. Strangely enough, for those who thought they might check this one out so they could bring along the kids, the innuendo is obvious enough to make it inappropriate for just about anyone under the age of 13. Heck, you might as well just go all the way and take your kids to the vastly superior and far funnier Hangover.

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• Movie Review: Land of the Lost -- 2 out of 5 stars

  Published on: June 3, 2009

  Roger Moore |Sentinel Staff Writer

  
  

  Danny McBride, Will Ferrell, and Anna Friel (Universal)
  
  
  Stupid on an epic scale or epic on a stupid one, Land of the Lost is as close as Will Ferrell comes these days to a "kid friendly" movie.

  A mildly ribald farce built around the 1970s children's TV show about humans stuck in a parallel universe and the weird critters they find there, Land of the Lost has been re-engineered for the Ron Burgundy Fan Club. And from the looks of things, no expense was spared in hurling the world's most infamous (and infamously lumpy) underwear model into a Journey to the Center of the Earth comic adventure.
  
  Ferrell plays Dr. Rick Marshall, a crackpot scientist exiled to a minor museum after a meltdown during a Today Show interview with Matt Lauer.
  
  But shapely Brit grad student Holly (Anna Friel) hunts him down and convinces him that he's not mad, that there are parallel universes and she has the fossilized cigarette lighter to prove it. Holly and the junk food addict Rick take his "tachyon amplifier" to a cheesy cave tourist attraction run by Will (Danny McBride), where an ordinary raft ride turns into a trip to "a cosmic lost and found," where pterodactyls fly past Fotomats, Cessnas lie entangled with Viking longships and primitive ape-like creatures whose language Holly speaks dodge dinosaurs and get buzzed on fruit juice.

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• NEW Land of the Lost featurettes and a clip

  Published on: May 29, 2009

  Check out a New clip from the movie, as well as 3 New featurettes including Intervies and behind the scenes footage!

  

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