Land of the Lost (2009)

I was going to watch another important, classical, old movie today, but I was so out of it and about to fall asleep that I knew I'd never make it through one. I needed something fun, goofy, and not at all serious. It just so happens that for almost the full year of this blog I've had Will Ferrell's Land of the Lost sitting here for just such an occasion. I fully expected to hate this movie, but I didn't have anything else that would fit the bill, and I still needed to watch a movie. My hands were tied. I was honestly expecting 10,000 BC level of terrible, but then again, I'm not one of the many haters of Will Ferrell. He's made plenty of movies that I've liked. Could it be possible this movie wouldn't be as bad as I thought? Hit the jump to find out!


This is a re-imagining of the original 1974 TV series of the same name. Dr. Rick Marshall (Will Ferrell) is a scientist on the verge of discovering "Time Warps" but needs massive funding to finish his research. The vast majority of the scientific community uses him as a joke, as his theories do sound incredibly insane and ridiculous. The joke is about to be on them, however, when he finishes his "Tachyon Amplifier" which actually opens one of his proposed Time Warps in the mouth of a derelict amusement river ride. This drops him, co-scientist Holly Cantrell (Anna Friel), and the redneck owner of the ride Will Stanton (Danny McBride) into the Land of the Lost!

Holly, Rick, and Will constantly find themselves in trouble in the Land of the Lost

I was actually surprised by how unoffensive I found Land of the Lost. I've never seen the original TV series, so a lot of the aspects and call backs to the show were new to me. This kept me off guard as all these weird things kept happening, like meeting these lizard men called the Sleestaks, a near human-level of intelligence Tyrannosaurus they nickname Grumpy, or the strange little monkey man called Chaka who feeds them weird fruit which proceeds to get them all high. While it wasn't the funniest movie I've ever seen, I'd be lying if I didn't admit it frequently amused me.

Only one example of the crazy stuff they find in the Land of the Lost

I really liked the world they created in the movie. The landscapes were always weird and interesting, and nothing in the place was predictable. Giant bugs, giant crabs, and of course plenty of dinosaurs. They also keep coming across weird leftover things that seem to have been sucked Bermuda Triangle style into the world. One of my favorite scenes involved the group, but mainly Will Ferrell, running away from dinosaurs (that he personally offended by saying they were just stupid lizards) amongst the ruins of what look like the San Francisco bridge, gas stations, a variety of cars, remains of entire motels, and a medieval catapult. Just the seemingly random collection of stuff kept me looking all over the place to see what else I might glimpse.

While the CG effects were stand-out obvious, they were almost cartoonish in quality, like Grumpy actually glaring at Will Ferrell, that it didn't matter that they stood out. Also, there were plenty of things in the film that were done with practical effects, like all the Sleestaks (which I thought looked really cool), and almost all those random things they find dropped in the desert. In short, I ended up liking the look of the movie even though the CG is already starting to show its age.

The Sleestak return!

I'm not sure if it was because my expectations were lowered so much, or if it's because I'm so tired, but I'd have to say that I kinda liked Land of the Lost. Some of the actual jokes and humour didn't work for me, a lot of it is the Danny McBride style of "high humour", as well as Will Ferrell acting as you would expect him to act. Some of it was good, some of it was only OK, and some of it was just stupid. I'd definitely say what primarily kept me going in the movie was all the random cool stuff, the monsters and dinosaurs, and the overall look of the world. If you liked the movie Your Highness there's a pretty good chance you'll enjoy this movie too, to some degree. This will definitely depend on how much you like the actors and that style of humour, so you probably already know if you'll like it. But there you go, that's my 2 cents, enjoy!