As a kid, I soaked up anything to do with dinosaurs, and thus viewed every movie and TV show that featured them. Being non-discriminatory (via an enthusiastic boy's viewpoint), I didn't care about the quality or lack thereof, and thus watched everything ranging from the groundbreaking work of Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen to the cheapo stuff featured in those Doug McClure "Land That Time Forgot" line of flicks.
Of course, catching those offerings was a hit or miss proposition back then, but I could always count on a certain Saturday morning TV show -- at least in the years it was on -- for my dino fix. Throw in two of the three main characters being kids, another being a kid like primate, some alien type stuff and some weird (and a little scary) lizard creatures, and "Land of the Lost" quickly became a weekend favorite.
Even back then, however, I knew that the show -- that aired from 1974 to 1976 -- was junk, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. Having recently seen it through adult eyes a few years back when sent the first season on DVD, I found out how truly awful it was, with cheap looking special effects, horrible acting and even a bad if slightly memorable theme song. Accordingly, that brings up both a question and observation about such a show serving as a catalyst for the big budget movie version of "Land of the Lost."
The first, of course, is what would inspire anyone to think turning such TV flotsam into a feature length film would be a good idea? Granted, kids still like dinosaurs, and this one features plenty of them, and there's always that baby boomer nostalgia thing that studios hope they can tap into and thus pull in some extra dough at the box office and later through DVD rentals and sales.
Even so, there's the observation that bad going in usually means bad coming out, and that's the case with this busy but unfocused offering. While there are a smattering of laughs to be had here and there, the overall effort is juvenile (but clearly not for preteens), dumb, and not particularly funny. Which really shouldn't come as a surprise if you already have the same opinion about most of Will Ferrell's films and the sort of (generally similar) character he plays in the majority of them.
Maybe it's due to him nearly always playing a man-child type persona, but it's interesting that director Brad Silberling and writers Chris Henchy & Dennis McNicholas opted not to take the family friendly approach with Ferrell and the overall material.
After all, the original show was about a dad and his two kids who -- thanks to the greatest earthquake ever known -- ended up rafting into an otherworldly dimension where their only refuge from carnivorous dinosaurs and slow-moving reptilian creatures was the safe confines of their rock cave and occasional visits inside a crystal crazy pylon.
Yet, rather than have Ferrell follow in the footsteps of Murphy, Cube, Diesel and The Rock doing the reluctant parent figure thing with kids in tow (and thus targeting the entire family), the film is aimed at adolescently minded male teens and young adults (the two supporting characters have now graduated to adult status, played by Anna Friel and Danny McBride). Granted, that's not necessarily a bad thing if the material is handled just right, but just about everything regarding this offering simply fails in most every fashion imaginable.
It certainly doesn't help that many of the effects (both visual and costume-based) range from mediocre to bad. Yes, I understand (or at least am guessing about) that they're purposefully cheesy as some sort of parody and/or homage to the same from the TV show. And I get that it's all supposed to be dumb, goofy and silly. Yet, if it's going to be all of those, it had better be funny, but it rarely is, even for those who adore Ferrell's brand of comedy styling.
With the storyline and set design arriving within the loose parameters of "most anything goes," it's all the more disappointing that those behind the camera didn't come up with better material. Considering that the hodgepodge of past and present manufactured items that show up in this world's desert (ranging from a neighborhood ice cream truck to a Viking ship to the Golden Gate Bridge) will likely remind some of Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" painting (the one with the melted clocks), one's expectations are that the material might just be as absurd and/or surreal.
Although there's some of that -- mostly during a trippy drug-induced sequence that does include a decent laugh featuring a big crab -- little of the material is smart or creative. The majority is sophomoric, predictable (guess from which end of a dinosaur the jokes will emerge when it swallows someone) and -- most disappointingly -- boring and flat when it comes to delivering the laughs.
If the thought of people coming into contact with dino bodily fluids, breasts being groped, and Ferrell doing his normal shtick already has you smiling and/or laughing, this film might be right up your alley. If not, you might just view this as the "Land of the Lost" potential, humor and/or 105 or so minutes of your time. The film rates as a 3 out of 10.
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