Land of the Lost is the latest movie to be gifted to us by NBC Universal. The movie stars Will Ferrell, Anna Friel, Danny McBride and John Boylan and is directed by Brad Silberling. OK, so where do I start with this one. I guess I begin by telling you that I’m not the biggest Will Ferrell fan in the world so this review may, in part be influenced by that fact. That said, I have found him very funny in The Anchorman and Wedding Crashers.
Land of the Lost is about Dr. Rick Marshall (Ferrell), a ridiculed physicist who, after inventing a device to move between alternate universes, is sucked into a space-time vortex with his assistant (Anna Friel) and a tour guide (Danny McBride). In this alternate universe, the trio make friends with a primate named Chaka (Jorma Taccone), their only ally in a world full of dinosaurs and other fantastic creatures.
As I opened, if Ferrell makes you laugh no matter what he does, this movie will probably one that tickles you pink. If you’re on the fence however, you’ll probably find the movie pretty dull and tiresome. At the cinema, Land of the Lost was in 3d and it could well be that in 3d, it adds a completely different dimension to a movie that is flat at best. Danny McBride is an actor that usually plays cameos in movies like Tropic Thunder, Superbad and Pineapple Express but has been promoted in this movie to a leading character. He plays his usual crude self making sexual jokes throughout which don’t really fit into what I thought was a supposed to be a kids movie, but after reading the rating, it is actually a 15. I think it would have appealed rather more if it had been aimed at the PG audience where jokes could be slightly sillier and less crude. Believe it or not, watching an hour an a half of Anna Friel being treated as a sex object became tiresome by the end of the movie! Sadly also failing completely is the introduction of a primate called Chaka (Jorma Taccone) who tries to be another comedy character, with the costume looking like he was from a Christmas pantomime theatre rather than being from a leading movie studio.
Land of the Lost has similarities with ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ with Tyrannosaurus Rex chasing them wherever they go but with an obvious appeal to kids. ‘Land of the Lost’ was completely that, lost in where it was supposed to be going and who it was supposed to be aimed at.
‘Land of the Lost’ is a movie which is makes you giggle maybe a couple of times but laugh out loud it certainly isn’t. I’m afraid I wont be recommending that you go to buy this one but if you love Will Ferrell and want to own everything he does, you can buy it on DVD here and Blu Ray here. You can also buy it through iTunes here.
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