See the Temple's post to know what I'm talking about.
I went to see Land of the Lost on Monday (my day off). Hey, I donated blood...I'm entitled to a little cheap entertainment while sipping on canned apple juice.
When this movie was first announced, I was SO disappointed. I actually found out about it because I was thinking about drafting my own LotL screenplay (I do this to myself sometimes) and first checked IMDB to find out if anyone had already beat me to it. Of course someone had.
Anyway...I LOVE the Land of the Lost, and I actually find Mr. Ferrell quite amusing (like him, inappropriate things make me chuckle). So I figured I'd see what it was all about.
Have to say it's a bit schitzo...I mean, it had some funny parts that actually made me laugh out loud (dinosaurs feeding on the ice cream truck was one of 'em), and you can see where all that big money went...it was definitely a big budget film. I thought the pylons were super-cool, and the idea of a "time warp" parallel plane rather than a straight-up "lost world" was a nice update.
And the dinosaurs were fantastic...I mean every movie that's come out just makes better and better use of CGI with respect to the T-Rex these days...hell, he's almost like his own name brand star ("Will Ferrell and T-Rex in Land of the Lost"). The characterization is so good, that watching a succession of films...say, Jurassic Park, King Kong, Night at the Museum, and LotL...is like watching the career of Arnold Schwartzenegger. Sure, in the first couple he doesn't say much and he spends a lot of time posing, but by the end he's totally hamming it up and thoroughly enjoying his role, not taking himself too seriously.
And the sound track? Hell, they got Dave Mustaine to play guitars for the sound track?! Holy shit!
As far as the talent (i.e. the actors) goes, it was a bit of a mixed bag. Strangely, I felt Danny McBride really captured the character of Will Marshall. That probably sounds insane, but it's as if they hired the original actor to reprise his role 20 years later with mustache, mullet, and beer gut...but with basically the same characterization and motivations. Ferrell was hit and miss (as usual). Holly was...um, British? What the f---?
Chaka was also f'ing amazing. Whoever the hell Jorma Taconne is, he deserves a supporting actor nod (from the Golden Globes maybe) for his performance. In fact, he made Holly a bit more bearable since she was translating for him through most of the movie. How she did it with a straight face is anyone's guess. Even though I'm not one for "low brow" humor, he was so earnest with his humping antics, I couldn't help grin. Plus for me, he embodied the essence of the original Chaka much as McBride did for Will.
Ferrell on the other hand, had little of Marshall to him...instead he was Will Ferrell, providing a semi-klutzy "everyman" eye-view through the perspective of a Friends' Ross-like archetype. It got old fairly quick. Where was John C. Reilly?
Anyway, I wouldn't force my wife to watch it, and I'd rather my kids watch the original series. I will note that I was the ONLY PERSON IN THE THEATER the whole time. I can't remember ever being the only person watching a film. Not even the ushers came in to watch. Wow.
Bomb City, folks.
I have to admit I enjoyed it. Sort of like enjoying burnt sausage roll outside a ballpark, I wouldn't say it was genuinely good but oddly enough it was enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteI laughed there were a couple of surprises and I just knew the villain was going to be who the villain was, I never trusted that guy back in the 70's. The T-Rex was pretty much fun.
Maybe it's becasue I spent a day watching the original series before I went to see the movie.
I still like the original series but as an adult I notice things I didn't as a child. Dad is either drunk, high or hungover in half the episodes. Some of the stories were amazingly good but almost beaten to death be dumbing down to saturday morning of the seventies IQ. It's hard to imagine a movie beign truely serious in the land of the lost and not bombing terribly.
It was less a squashing of the orignal series and more a send-up of a lot of Dinosaur movies.
I might buy this baby on DVD if I see it on sale (well, let's be real, it'll be on sale). But I also have frozen quesdillas in my freezer.
Any movie that can make me laugh out loud in a completely empty movie theater even a couple times can't be all bad...and this one wasn't.
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall Marshall looking haggard and hungover in the original series also, but it's been so many years since I've seen it. They should have worked that into the film instead of the "stress eating."
: )