Land of The Lost surely won’t be on the list of summer highlights, rather falling into the small barrel (so far) of disappointments this season. Despite many problems, the film winds up mildly succeeding due to a few notable performances and the colorful retro look that Brad Silberling brought to the film.
Failed scientist Rick Marshall has become the laughing stock of his profession after studying the ideas of time warps and spending hefty funs on it. Rick soon gets a visit from Holly Cantrell a fellow scientist who believes in Marshall’s theories and has come to help him get back on top. Rick and Holly decide to explore further into time warps and they soon find themselves caught in a miraculous world. With the help of a dim witted survivalist named Will Stanton and a frisky critter named Chaka, they must battle through the dangers they find including a mischievous T. Rex and viciously slow reptiles called as Sleestaks.
> ” />
The story is entirely too simplistic, leaving no excitement for the audience. Silberling, understanding this, attempted overwrought adventure and time paradoxes that are immediately attention grabbing and the film delivers on some of those aspects. Nothing in the story manages to excite, but it never is unnervingly dull. The first two acts are set up as a fun run and hide type adventure flick with solid character work. The crew is mostly seen having watchable character interactions and also just running away from a clever T. Rex. That is where the story shows exudes as a fun adventure film, but it is the third act where the film falters tremendously. The last act gives more attention to a protagonist that is rather uninteresting and un-menacing. The film becomes a standard good versus evil story while it starts to drag at a sluggish pace. It still holds up in the end though since the first two acts were entertaining enough to still look upon the film as a mild success.
Brad Silberling truly has an eye for visuals. He brings his lavishing visual flair from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events along with him which undoubtedly is a good thing. The film’s true highlights comes from his direction and his eye for visuals. Silberling went for an old school look with a fantastic production design, causing further admiration for the world he has designed. All the sets are a joy to experience. At times he does stumble by relying a little too much on cheesy CGI, but it doesn’t come off too distracting since that look fits right in with this world. The real main reason why Land of The Lost is watchable is because of Silberling’s direction.
Sticking with his usual shtick of comedy is Will Ferrell who is funny as Rick Marshall, despite numerous flat jokes. He portrays Rick as a joke who is looking to redeem himself and he winds up coming off likable. It is the role that Ferrel generally plays, but its hard to fault him here because at times he is fun to watch. Playing the throwaway role of Holly Cartell is Anna Friel. Despite lacking any convincing chemistry with Ferrell, she overcomes this obstacle with charismatic on screen presence. She should have been given more to do most notably comedic wise, she is mostly overshadowed by Ferrell and McBride. The real scene stealer is Danny McBride who continually seems to be inept of being unfunny. The interaction between Ferrell and McBride are the highlight here, despite some repetitiveness.
Land of The Lost is not a particularly good film, but it is an ambitiously strange popcorn film that deserves a little admiration. A lot of the humor does fall flat and the last act was a disappointment, but the good does outweigh the bad. Land of The Lost is mildly entertaining due to its likable oddness and Silberling’s unique eye for visuals.