Land of the Lost: Crude, Rude and Insulting…But Funny
I feel strongly that I’m about to issue a minority opinion of a film that is going to get a lot of crap from internet talkbackers. Even though you may have noticed from other reviews of mine, I almost never give an “unqualified” good or bad review to anything. One of my reviewing methodologies is to try to “qualify” my opinion by giving examples of what type of filmgoer may like or dislike a film on the opposite side of the fence of where I am. That being said, I feel that I must say before I give Land of the Lost a “qualified” personal and mostly positive review, I believe that I can accurately give you an assessment that will tell you whether there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that you’ll care for the film at all, so here it goes…
Fortunately, I can honestly and without qualification state that this website is simply an exercise in ego for just about any of us that post here. While we are rolling in the massive $10 or $20 we’ve made in ad revenue over the past year, if this was a for profit enterprise we’d have been shut down on day 3 and filed a business chapter 11 bankruptcy. Apart from few kind words and fairly kind emails, we get no kick backs, money, or even a acknowledgment from anyone that benefits from a positive review from any of us. So, as much as I’d love to be a plant, I assure you it’s costing me much more money to tell you that I absolutely adored Land of the Lost than I ever stand to make from the massive ad revenue from the couple of dozen visitors we get a day.
The film is funny. And if you are a reverent hardcore fan of the original Sid and Marty Kroft television program called Land of the Lost, you are probably going to hate it. This movie not only shows no love for the source material, it basically spits in the face of it. I can honestly say that even if you see and hate this film, that if you pretend that there’s one episode of the original show that has half the entertainment value (from a dramatic standpoint at least) of this film, you might possibly either be living in a fantasy land or just simply have extremely low standards.
Don’t get me wrong, when I was eight years old, I ate that shit up. I LOVED Land of the Lost. As much I looked forward to Hong Kong Phooey and Scooby Doo on Saturday mornings, I lived for Land of the Lost. It was the dinosaur show for the pre-ten crowd. The effects were embarrassing even for the time and the acting was simply among the worst ever on live television.
The absolute best you can say about it in good conscience is that it did occasionally put forth interesting concepts from a science fiction perspective. Even when the writing wasn’t poor though, it was executed so poorly that it’s completely impenetrable. I watched, along with all the other kids my age, for two reasons: the obligatory scene in most episodes where the T-Rex chased the Marshall family into the cave and tried to eat them and the scenes with the Sleestacks, which for kids that age were eerie and scary as hell. I had nightmares about the Sleestacks. Oddly enough, the one thing in the film that is more scary and less funny that the program is the Sleestacks.
So who else is not going to enjoy this film? If you hate Will Ferrell, you will hate this flick. End of story, pass it up, nothing to see here. If you think Ferrell is occasionally funny, you have a decent chance of getting some laughs.
If you don’t like goofy, irreverent low-brow comedies, you’ll hate this film. The jokes are mostly immature, low rent, slapstick. Drug jokes. Sex jokes. Poop Jokes. Improper awkward moments of people hitting eachother, improperly touching women’s breasts, low concept jokes involving pain, suffering, and/or show tunes that are milked over and over again, sometimes go on way too long and sometimes slip by as off-hand comments abound. Land of the Lost is 93 minutes of absolutely nothing but funny, irreverent moments, self-deprecating humor, jokes involving human dismemberment, and complete and utter disrespect for anything resembling a serious moment or story line. It’s exactly the kind of film I would have written when I was wannabe film student in college between semi-regular binges of alcohol or mild narcotics. If it had been 15 minutes longer it would have been much too long. But it wasn’t, and I had a great time.
So how much does this have to do with the original show at all? Almost nothing, really apart from a few similar concepts, “cute” nods to show, and a character or two with similar names.
Take the script out of this mess and you’ve got ambitious production design. It looks good, the effects are good, not “awesome” but certainly pleasant to look at and easy on the eyes. The Sleestacks are actually scary looking once they actually open their mouths, and I’ve never gotten any more entertainment from any program with Matt Lauer than this.
So is the film great? Hell no, it’s not. But it’s funny, it’s entertaining, and consistent. And basically, a ton of people are going to hate it mercilessly. Don’t take it seriously. Pay your money, get some popcorn, and head in to laugh at few irreverent jokes.
Personally, it’s sitting high on my list of most entertaining if not really “best” films of the year. I’ve had much less fun in films I’ve liked a lot more than this in my life. My advice: take off your critical glasses, by all means be aware that this is a STRONG PG-13 if you plan to bring the kids, and if you have a designated driver, mildly medicate yourself before heading in. You’ll have a good time.
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3 Responses to “Land of the Lost: Crude, Rude and Insulting…But Funny”
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June 6th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
I’m going to ignore the fact that you liked this movie for the moment to ask a much more important question: Where’s my share of this $10 profit you’re talking about?
June 6th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
The $10.00 Ad revenue Is something I’ve actually heard about, but not seen directly either. However, since that constitutes $10.00 in “revenue” and not profit, it will take over 10 years to recoup the hosting costs. What I have not had is the heart to tell our illustrious fellow blogger and webmaster who informed me of the alleged $10.00 in ad revenue that I’m guessing that a significant portion of that came from a click that I personally made on a Pizza Hut ad back late this winter from our front page which resulted in an online pizza order. Two large hand tossed. One Meat, One Veggie. You can’t go wrong with meat.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Well, I honestly had not read any “professional” reviews or internet feedback before I saw Land of the Lost on opening night. I figured it would be getting mixed, mostly negative reviews, but I had no idea how much hate would be hurled toward this film on opening weekend. WIth that being said, in retrospect I feel that I owe this movie a little bit more than what I gave it in my initial review. The link to my forum post below gives a little bit more detail of what I liked about Land of the Lost and why I liked it.
I wanted to make it clear that I stand by my positive review without reservation:
http://deviantknowledge.com/forum/movies-and-tv/land-of-the-lost-the-defense/#p394