Note: This is the first in what will hopefully be a healthy, ongoing series of blog-specific reviews. I know, I know. Blogs, alas, are mostly for propagating that lovely thing known as the "internet hate machine." A lot of fat bastards have reviews, solely about their likes and dislikes with the latest comic movies. But fear not. I'm a forkin' journalist. I see many movies. I talk about many movies. And I was an art student, meaning I can hopefully make this crap nicer to look at than most blogs. Most...It feels good to to write. Now, these won't be cleanest and most articulate things I spit out. I mean, come on. I'm editing myself now. Wow, that makes me nauseous.
Oh, and I'm not here to really bitch out anyone, or piss and moan about everything. Just a lot of things. But I'm writing. So I got that goin' for me.
With that in mind, I present to you the beginning.
"Land of the Lost" by Silberling. B.
Universal. 2009.
Seen at: http://www.watch-movies-links.net/movies/land_of_the_lost/ (I know, shame on me.) The rest will be theaters.
Let me just say this up front.
I'm not a gawdamn pothead. Which is I hate to admit that I really dug Will Ferrel's "Land of the Lost."
The first official flop of summer '09, "Lost" got a critical curb-stomp. Sporting a 32% last time I checked Metacritic, it's been lamented as being "junk food" (Film Threat), "lame sketch comedy" (Hollywood Reporter) and "terminally stupid, sloppy, campy, and cheesy" (New York Post). All valid, if not scathing assessments. But here's the thing: those criticisms are what I found charming about this super-sized adaption of a kids meal cartoon show.
Chintzy, freaky and fuckin' weird, "Land of the Lost" is brave in its oddity. Like a rejected Spielberg family project from the 1980's, "Lost" is better than one might expect. Why? It's an oddly endearing affair. And it couldn't be any other way. Just look at the source material.
In 1974, Sid and Marty Krofft did something illegal I've probably never heard of, and wound up creating the kids show, "Land of the Lost." A cheapy yarn about a family traveling back through time, it featured oddly threatening clay dinosaurs, vicious zipper-backed sleestaks, and hairy little boys that talked crazy. You know. Cult crazy drug fodder. Or like me, maybe you saw the 1991 version? La-la-la-la-Land of the Lost!
Yeah. Uh. No TV show is sacred or safe. You all know that by now. So here's to 2013's "Married...With Children" movie, starring Paul Giammati.
Back to 2009. With a considerable budget, and a bit of star power, "Land of the Lost" loosely and semi-lovingly takes the prospect of time warps, dinos, sleestaks, and chakas, and enables Will Ferrel make a horse's ass out of himself for the better part of 100 minutes. And that tis all. Want more? Well, it's a journey home story I suppose. But who cares?
Ferrel is Dr. Rick Marshall, shamed quack scientist and maker of an elusive time warping machine (complete with showtune playback). After being propositioned by the adorably optimistic Holly Cantrell (an uber-cute Anna Friel, TV's "Pushing Daisies"), Rick and Holly decide to try out Rick's glorified fax machine. Before the warp, they congregate with the little skeezer that is Will Stanton (a shit-hot Danny McBride, TV's "Eastbound and Down"), a fireworks salesman and all-around affable dirtbag.
From there, it's dino-piss, Cher-jokes, pleasant PG-13 cursing, showboating Chakas, and plenty of Ferrel on McBride action. Want a story? Tough. The amusement is in production design, sight gags, and Ferrel and McBride's brands of humor. Bo Welch ("Joe Versus the Volcano") creates the wildest flea market of Arabia you've ever seen, alone worth admission. And despite the ease of brushing off crass kiddy kids (dino piss ... dino piss), you gotta admire a movie willing to be so eccentric in its gags.
Ferrel, regardless of how lazy the material presented to him be, manages to strengthen it with his perpetually spastic manboy thing (see "Wedding Crashers"). When a grown man has to justify his Florscheim zipper boots in the middle of a jungle chase, you laugh not because it's actually funny. You laugh because when the hell do you hear anyone talk about anything like that? Especially during a foot chase? Ferrel brings the doofus, just fine. And McBride's greasy sideshow is more than enough to match Ferrel's mainlining. The Latin Grammy's gag? The drug scene? Yeah, it needs to seen. At least to be believed.
And I'm not even getting into the horn-dog hairball Chaka (Jorma Jaccome, you know him from "gizzing in his pants"). Yeah, he's funny too.
Now, if that ain't your cup of dino piss (yay! we said it again!), then skip it. Oddlt enough, this is director Brad Silberling's ("Casper") most interesting and courageous film. It's awkward man. Violent, confusing and uneven too. But ... meh.
Chances are, most people will find it stupid, and they're probably right. But when we get stupidity this pricey outside of Republican politics? Mark my words, "Land of the Lost," were it to come out in 1983, it'd be the third cousin to "Goonies" or "Gremlins" or something odd like that. The only way it should have been. Give it time. You'll watch this ten times on USA, I promise.
In my defense:
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