Director: Brad Silberling
Starring: Will Ferrell, Anna Friel & Danny McBride
An enjoyable comedy that manages to amuse through the absurdity of its plotline and situations but finds its tone muddled by mixing adult humour alongside more family friendly moments.
Land of the Lost, the latest in a series of big screen adaptations of popular TV shows into comedies for the big screen starring established comedians follows on from Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson’s Starsky & Hutch remake and Steve Carrell’s Get Smart adaptation. The difference between those films and this film, starring Will Ferrell, is that Land of the Lost is based on a series made for children where its big screen counterpart possesses a far more adult tone with its humour which, whilst appealing to older audiences, makes the film less accessible to the audience with which its source material was meant for.
When scientist Rick Marshall (Ferrell) is publicly ridiculed for his theories of parallel dimensions where time and space meet, Marshall finds himself reduced to teaching and shunned by the scientific community at large. When Marshall is approached by an enthusiastic student named Holly (Friel) who supports his theories, Marshall completes the device he’d devised to travel to other dimensions and finding an ideal spot beneath an amusement ride where a doorway can be opened, Marshall, Holly and a tour guide named Will, find themselves landing in a strange dimension filled with aliens, dinosaurs and other relics from across time and space and facing a plot by an would-be-alien conqueror who wishes to use Marshall’s device to enable him to invade dimensions.
Audiences looking for a film more in spirit with the original family-orientated TV series from 1974 will likely find themselves disappointed with this adaptation. Replacing the park ranger and his children from the original series with a scientist, his partner and love interest and a redneck tour guide in the adaptation allows the filmmakers the opportunity to explore more adult situations within the film and certainly more adult humour. While recognisable characters such as the lizard men known as the Sleestak, dinosaurs and lost items and buildings from history all appear and have prominence within the film, the nature of the humour in Land of the Lost, whilst light, is altogether different. With a generous amount of sexual innuendo with characters such as the caveman Chaka and much of it directed towards Friel’s Holly, the film also features a fair amount of drug related humour somewhat parodying the culture of the era in which the TV series first appeared, the surreal nature of the film’s environment and situations including one extended sequence where Marshall, Will and Chaka experience dizzying highs after eating a special fruit growing within the dimension. Some of these sequences hit their mark resulting in some funny moments, particularly the drug-inspired sequences, though the sex-related humour is often too crude to amuse more mature audiences. Still, while the humour might have mixed appeal with audiences, the storyline has some enjoyment in its embrace of some of ridiculousness of its premise. Dinosaurs are smarter than they appear, Lizard men sound like Leonard Nimoy, Ice Cream Vans fall from the sky, Marshall’s device plays show tunes when in use and musical interludes serve Marshall’s mission to retrieve his device that will take him home. Land of the Lost is often very silly, but enjoyably so and frequently amuses even though it rarely offers anything particularly memorable.
Ferrell leads the film with his usual dim, man-child persona. It’s the same, almost one-note persona that he uses in most of his films and it’s adequate for the film and for those fond of his brand of humour but it is the supporting roles that are more enjoyable. Friel, whilst playing a character whose attraction to Marshall stretches credibility, is nevertheless charming and engaging, bursting with enthusiasm and warmth while McBride plays the tough-talking, redneck stereotype quite well too getting some of the best lines.
Overall, while not particularly memorable of outstanding and with a brand of humour that is at odds with that of the TV series it is based on, Land of the Lost still amuses enough to satisfy. Fans of Ferrell will be fine with his performance too but its Friel and McBride that entertain the most. A decent comedy.
Rating: 3/5
