Title: Land of the Lost
Genre: Adventure Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Synopsis: Marshall, Will, and Holly, on a routine expedition... fall into a world where past, present, and future are all mixed up. They have to find their tachyon amplifier, so they can get back home, and along the way they run into some lizard men with magical crystals.
Uh... yeah. First off, let me explain why I went to go see this movie. My mom grew up watching the original TV series it was based on (there was also a second series in the '90s), and when she heard about this movie, she was moved by a firm desire to see it. Despite knowing that the source material was awful, and that the film would be too. And... I wound up going with her, just to see how bad it would be.
It was... not good.
I'm not that familiar with the TV shows, but in case anyone here is, let me point out that these are not the same characters. Holly is a devotee of Dr. Marshall's work, and Will is a guy they met while "field-testing" the tachyon amplifier. I'm okay with this. For a short, goal-oriented adventure, the three-contributing-adults dynamic works better than the father-protecting-his-kids theme.
Where the movie really fell apart was the plot. Find the device, open a portal, go home. So far, so good. Of course, the scriptwriters had to put obstacles in the way. And... I realize there had to be Sleestaks in the movie, but the plot with them just didn't make a lot of sense. (One of the Sleestaks is played by Leonard Nimoy. It seems like lately he's only been in things with plots that don't make a lot of sense.) The other problem was with the development of the plot. A few times, the characters were in the middle of something that seemed pretty important, but then the scene just kind of ended and suddenly they were somewhere else.
Also, there was at least one scene that didn't seem to contribute anything to the plot, and wasn't even funny, unless you're a teenage boy. A lot of the humor was of that caliber. (Although, to be fair, points for references to Star Wars and Stephen Hawking, and for some very wise nods to movie cliches.)
On the production side, the sets looked like they were trying too hard, the Sleestaks looked like humans in awkward costumes, and some of the blue-screening wasn't meshed quite right.
The sense of drama never really came through, despite the characters standing around trying to drag out dramatic moments. As for the ending -
I will say, that there's a scene in the credits, so if you manage to sit through the whole movie, you should stay just a little longer.
In conclusion:
, though not really "could have been so much better", because given the premise and the source material, this project was pretty doomed from the get-go.
