Land of the Lost - Review

I'll give this to the new Will Ferrell science-fiction comedy Land of the Lost: I've never really seen another movie like it. In a cinematic landscape that more and more emphasizes sameness and product over new experiences, I'll consider that a fairly high compliment. It's also the reason the movie seems doomed to alienate most audiences and quickly become many people's least favorite Will Ferrell movie.

I never watched the original Saturday morning Land of the Lost as a kid, having missed it by a few years (though my brother did have an imaginary friend named for the Holly character, so I think that counts). I can't really speak to how faithful or unfaithful the film is to Sid and Marty Krofft's original creation. What surprised me about the movie is just how much science fiction oddness it has retained (which I assume has to come from the series), rather than just repurposing the whole thing into a big Will Ferrell summer comedy. There are many instances where Ferrell's comedy seems to be straining against the rest of the movie, or where the whole thing stops cold while Ferrell launches into one of his familiar bits. Ultimately, though, Ferrell and the movie tend to serve one another, creating one unusually bizarre -- but cohesive -- whole.

Ferrell stars as Dr. Rick Marshall, a scientist laughed out of the field after his theories on time warps and potential alternate dimensions lead to a very public meltdown on The Today Show. After three years pass, a young scientist named Holly Cantrell (Anna Friel, cute and plucky as ever) finds Marshall to say she believes in his theories and presents him with some evidence that suggests he could be correct. Together, the two set off on a "routine expedition" to a cave where, along with their fireworks-enthusiast tour guide (Danny McBride), they're sucked into a vortex and into a new dimension where "past, present and future all coexist."

Once in this new dimension, the trio -- accompanied by a monkey-man named "Chaka" (played by Jorma Taccone of The Lonely Island) -- face off against angry dinosaurs, giant insects and scary lizard people known as Sleetstaks. Dr. Marshall has been proven right, but how will he get the trio back to their home world?

It's odd that a movie studio would decide to update a cult science-fiction kids show as a Will Ferrell vehicle, because there's not much in Land of the Lost's source material that suggests comedy. And though the jokes don't really gel with the special effects set pieces the way they do in, say, Ghostbusters (probably the best f/x comedy every made), both end up working together to create their own overall tone. Of course, not all of the humor works; too often, the movie grinds to a halt for Ferrell and McBride to indulge in long, shapeless bits without any payoff. There are far too many gross-out jokes involving blood and dinosaur urine (the latter is funny for a while, but never really goes anywhere). An ongoing joke about A Chorus Line is never very funny, culminating in a sequence that's meant to a show-stopper but instead falls very, very flat.

Though Ferrell still plays his usual character -- the overly-confident know-it-all who's actually rather dim -- there are some minor tweaks to the persona that I liked. For once, he's not a total idiot; he actually is a gifted scientist who knows what he's talking about. He's bad at decision making, sure, but he's not a helpless buffoon shrieking around the jungle. I think it would have been easy for Ferrell to take the character in that direction, and I'm glad he and director Brad Silberling chose not to. For as juvenile and silly as the movie is at times, I like that it still respects science and science fiction.

Because so much of the humor in Land of the Lost is sexual and/or scatological, the young audience members the movie's marketing is geared toward aren't likely to understand the jokes. And because the rest of the movie is filled with bizarre sights in service to a bizarre story, Ferrell's usual audience will be left cold. The result is a movie that doesn't really please anyone, except for a person like myself who tends to respond to movies that dare to stay utterly true to themselves no matter how uncommercial it makes them. I suspect Ferrell will have to go back to the well to recover from the reaction to Land of the Lost (expect a sequel to Anchorman to be announced sooner rather than later). I also suspect that Land of the Lost will slowly be rediscovered in the coming years, when people realize they may not have given it a fair shake. The movie is a mess, but it's its own mess, and I have to applaud Ferrell for taking a risk and making something different. Land of the Lost is unlike anything else you're likely to see this summer. This will make you either rush out to see it or stay as far away as possible. I can't really blame you for either.

• Land of the Lost is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content, language and a drug reference
• Running Time: 93 minutes
• Release Date: June 5, 2009