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Land of the Lost (2009)

Director: Brad Silberling

Time Out rating

Average user rating

5 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

If you reckon today’s Hollywood effects movies are all designed by committee, this truly ramshackle version of a dimly remembered cheapo ’70s TV series might change your mind. The marketing angle for this big-screen offering seems to be Will Ferrell plus CGI dinosaurs and bug-eyed aliens in lizard suits equals one big family frolic. The movie, however, is a ragbag of lackadaisical plotting, drugs references, puerile lechery and shiny effects work, an assemblage far from child-friendly yet not quite grungey enough to wow older teens.

Ferrell, as the ‘quantum palaeontologist’ convinced of another dimension where different time periods collide, appears close to the Mike Myers tipping point where only the performer himself thinks he’s funny. Then again, with merely the skeleton crew of scientist Anna Friel (a grim role mainly requiring cleavage), white trash tour-guide Danny McBride and Jorma Taccone’s grunting, groping (said cleavage), prehistoric primate accompanying him into the aforementioned alternate dimension, the star turn is left rather exposed by the script’s confounding dearth of laughs.

All of which should, by rights, prove unendurable, but once you realise that the movie doesn’t have its act together, it somehow becomes perversely endearing. While ace production designer Bo Welch struts his stuff in the hallucinatory desert locales strewn with pop culture flotsam and jetsam, the story schleps from one cursory action set-piece to another with an almost heroic absence of conviction – playing just like some multi-million-dollar stoner gag at the studio’s expense. If only it were a lot funnier, then we’d all be smiling.

Author: Trevor Johnston 2009-07-28 11:29:09

Time Out London Issue 2032, 29 July -4 August, 2009

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User reviews of this film

As we listen, we evalua said...

Posted on Oct 22 2009 23:24 As we listen, we evaluate the story, and we find it more or less easy to enter, depending on the storyteller. ,

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keith said...

Posted on Aug 20 2009 10:01 Great comedy entertainment. much better than the reviews suggest. If you have no sence of humour then don't go to watch it.

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jimmy said...

Posted on Aug 12 2009 14:26 Sooooo bad! Only the 4th or 5th film in my life I walked out of...usually don't mind Will Ferrel but this one was just painful. Not even worth your time if it's free...

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natasha said...

Posted on Aug 05 2009 09:52 i reali liked it i agree with louis i think it wouls be beta if it were a 12

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louis said...

Posted on Aug 04 2009 15:08 well it was really funny but there was so rude bits louds of swear words in there like the f word the w word and stuff like that it is so not a 12a

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