Thanks for checking out our Land of the Lost review. If you’d like to see a video version of our Land of the Lost review you can check it out at the bottom of this post.
There are many movies made from old TV shows that make s collectively ask “WHY!?!?!” However, Land of the Lost is not one of those for me. The old show was a campy and cheesy, yet kinda fun show with a solid premies for a movie behind it. Add Will Ferrell to the cast and you potentially have a winner, and certainly a box office giant right? Well no… not even a little bit. This movie was terrible.
THE GENERAL IDEA
The synopsis for Land of the Lost looks something like this: “On his latest expedition, Dr. Rick Marshall (Ferrell) is sucked into a space-time vortex alongside his research assistant (Friel) and a redneck survivalist (McBride). In this alternate universe, the trio make friends with a primate named Chaka (Taccone), their only ally in a world full of dinosaurs and other fantastic creatures. Can they all make it back to our world alive, and if so: Will Dr. Marshall can go from zero to hero with his discoveries?”
THE GOOD
You could have changed several of the characters around and no one would have blinked or cared. You could have even changed the name of the lead character and hardly anyone would have noticed. BUT… you HAD to get the Sleestak right if you’re going to do a Land of the Lost movie. And man they really did. In the movie they stayed completely faithful to the Sleestak of the TV show and made some improvements to them at the same time (they did some great CGI stuff with their mouths that looked pretty good).
In any Will Ferrell movie you can usually safely expect at least a few good one liners and laughs, and sure enough there are a couple of those scattered throughout the movie (not many mind you… but a couple). For me, one of the funnier moments of the film is one we see in the trailer with Ferrell getting sucked on by a giant mosquito… except that it was even funnier in the film.
That’s about it.
THE BAD
I started getting really tired of Will Ferrell’s schtick a while ago. I wasn’t a fan of Talladega Nights, or Blades of Glory or Semi Pro (at all). He’s the exact same Will Ferrell in every single movie. Then out of nowhere he does Step Brothers that I almost cried at because I was laughing so hard. I thought Ferrell had returned to form. Sadly, it didn’t last long because he’s back to the tired same old Schtick again. Like in Semi Pro he had no life, no enthusiasm. He was just dead in the movie ALMOST everything he said you could have predicted. I understand that in a PG-13 movie his hands are tied a lot more than they are in an R rated comedy like Step Brothers… but regardless of the reason, Ferrell just didn’t work. Maybe he should lean more towards the R stuff for a while.
If someone purposefully made a “bad” movie and succeeded… you still call it a bad movie. Despite the fact that the Sleestak’s looked pretty good, the rest of the movie looked really cheesy. Some people suspect this might have been on purpose… but if that’s the case it only makes it worse There is no excuse for making crap look this bad.
Land of the Lost is supposed to be a comedy… and it’s just not funny. Yes it has its moments… but the moments are few and far between.
The action in the film was pretty weak too. I lost count of how many times we saw Ferrell running away from something BIG… then cut to another angle and suddenly the thing chasing him is even further away. Constantly using that exact same mistake took any of the tension or excitement out of the movie. Why get my heart pounding when I know in two seconds the T-Rex will magically be 200 yards further behind him. If was strange the first time it happened… then it just got flat out annoying.
OVERALL
Overall Land of the Lost is pretty much just a waste of 2 hours. A comedy that’s not funny with some action that’s not exciting. That pretty much sums it up. I sure hope Ferrell can return to form for his next project, because I find myself almost ready to give up on him again. Overall I give Land of the Lost a 3 out of 10.
You can watch the video version of our Land of the Lost review below
