Land of the Lost
It’s hard to imagine an actual die-hard fanboy for the TV show Land of the Lost. All the Sid & Marty Krofft shows seem to inspire fond, indulgent affection rather than geek loyalty. This movie tips its cap to our favorite aspects of the series (Sleestaks! Chaka! Craziness! The theme song!) while genuinely trying (and sometimes succeeding) to make a fun, modern movie. Marshall, Will, and Holly are now three unrelated adults rather than creepy father-children. Land of the Lost the movie is upbeat, pretty silly, but funny in enough portion to render it pleasant.
The scriptwriters’ rely heavily on the tongue-in-cheek art of understatement, at which both Will Ferrell and Danny McBride excel. No one plays an arrogant boob like Will Ferrell, and Marshall is pretty much the apex of arrogant boobs. McBride plays to type but damn if I am not yet tired of it. These guys also have an affable rivalry – not for Holly (Anna Friel) but just for being right. The story has plenty of purposeful cheese and Mel Brooksian asides, and lopes along like a big happy dog while dropping in random items that crossed over from our world in a “that was lucky” oasis of plot devices.
Jorma Taccone (Incredibad, Hot Rod) is a weird and likable Cha-Ka – quite a feat, since the original Chaka was plenty annoying. He’s got the hardest job, being mostly non-English speaking, covered in fur, but still having to do some heavy lifting next to his costars. Anna Friel is beautiful, smart, and British; in other words, filler in an American comedy remake of a kid’s TV show full of boy stuff. She gets to hint that Friel has more comedy chops than the script allows, but it rarely does allow.
According to the credits, Crash McCreery handled the creative design, but IMDB disagrees, crediting Bo Welch. Well, whoever did it, wow! Shout out merited. The tourist trap cave where Marshall and Holly meet Will has a spot-on look and feel to it – godforsaken, low-rent, but endearingly sincere. Once we get to Un’Goro Crater – er, I mean, The Land of the Lost – the world is loopily off. It’s cartoony and realistic at the same time, like the corny, meticulously detailed sets for rides at DisneyWorld. A cave they hide out in is very patently artificial but still just right in the world they’re in. Vines, statuary, crazy flowers – it’s a subtle and difficult look to pull off and this movie rocks it. And then there are the Sleestaks. Their every awkward, impractical structure is lovingly reproduced here – their costumes are great but they still stink of zipper (see aforementioned Subtle Look). They are not intrinsically funny except in their duplicated absurdity – in a low-budget Krofft show you shrug and accept their obvious defects. Here it’s a choice in spite of budget, and it works because Land of the Lost the movie is not about a scary other dimension and life-threatening action. It’s about watching Marshall, Will, and Holly just be in it.
So, there is a story, it’s just secondary to the existence of the contents of the story, and therefore, quite true to the show. This is probably the only S&MK show that could have been made into a movie, except possibly Sigmund the Sea Monster – the charm of those shows was their weird, cheap kookiness and barely concealed adult winks, unlike say, Star Trek, which was only incidentally like that but with higher aspirations.
Speaking of higher aspirations, the wacky great 1960’s-ish score was written by none other than Michael “No-Doz Addict” Giacchino. It’s extra fun listening to it while you await the stinger after the credits. Land of the Lost is easy, mindless fun for the whole family, good to rent or good to see on a lazy afternoon. It’s cute.
MPAA Rating PG-13
Release date 6/5/09
Time in minutes 101
Director Brad Silberling
Studio Universal Pictures
