Land of the Lost (2009) – Movie Review

Land of the Lost is originally a kids television show that aired back in 1974. It was produced by the Krofft brothers, Sid and Marty. The characters that starred on the show were the Marshall family, Rick, Will, and Holly Marshall, who were on a ordinary expedition when suddenly something went wrong and found themselves falling randomly into a waterfall. When they awoke, they came to a strange world where they came face to face with dinosaurs, primate called the Pakuni (which were kind of interrupted as early forms human beings) , and the lizard species, the Sleestak.

A remake of the 1974 series was done in the early 1990’s which became one of my FAVORITE kid shows. I always wanted that DAGGER. >.< They only changed the names of the characters with a few more additional characters to the cast.

Now, in mythology or in science fiction, there came a time when people have talked about early human lifestyles and what type of other species that existed. I’m not too familiar with the subject, but they were labeled as the reptilian humanoids. Basically there saying that back in the day, human beings weren’t the only superior race with the ability to dominate the Earth. However, there are thousands of articles portraying another story saying we evolved from them or the unknown wars that early human beings won in order to continue to survive up until now.

In many cases, I do remember reptile like human beings used in video games during my SNES era. A great example would be Chrono Trigger, where you travel to nearly 10,000 BC (I think) to help Ayla, the prehistoric warrior fight the mighty lizard king that threaten to kill off the human race.

Anywhoooooo…

Land of the Lost in 2009 became a big budget film starring Will Ferrell as Dr. Rick Marshall, Anna Friel as Holly Cantrell, and Danny McBride as Will Stanton. The film is directed by Brad Silberling. If your a fan of the original TV show, this is a definite must see film due to the fact that most of things that occur during the film is based off the 1974 TV show.

The story starts out on television broadcast as Matt Lauer is hosting the Today show and is interviewing Dr. Rick Marshall. He discusses his research and asks him to explain it a little more in detail. Rick explains his theory on time warps and how it will save the world. After hearing about Rick’s theory, Matt was speechless and like everybody else, he labeled him as a nutcase and he's out of his mind. The interview went from bad to worse when Rick nearly attacked Matt.

Since that interview, Rick has been laughed at, and was nearly pushed down the latter in the science field to a teacher at George C. Page Museum where he gave his presentation about a device that can work to create time warps, the Tachyon amplifier. When all seemed lost for Rick, a very attractive woman came to his classroom and confronted him about his research. She introduced herself as Holly Cantrell and encouraged him to go back into his research. Rick had opposing decisions to whether or not continue his research and to create the device, but after a long night, Rick developed the Tachyon amplifier.

With no time to waste Holly and Rick traveled out to seek out a signal which the amplifier can detect and exert the particles which cause a tear in time and space for developing time warps. They get a strong reading in a cave and see that it is a tourist attraction, The Devils Cave. They meet up with the tour guide, Will Stanton and they head out into the cave in a raft.

As they are traveling in the cave, the device reacts to nearby particles and cause the cave to shift in the water path’s movement. The raft was traveling on its own downward as Will claimed he doesn’t know what is going on. Eventually the raft is lead into a waterfall as everybody onboard it fall.

Our main characters wake up in a parallel world where many things from 10,000 BC to anything from modern time where piled like garbage around the sand. The view of the sky looked as if they were on a different planet.

Holly is amazed by the accomplishment and looks toward Rick and asks him what this all means now.

Rick promptly is proud of his accomplishment and entering the Land of the Lost and proudly shouts, “Yes…I know what this means, MATT LAUER CAN SUCK IT!”

Aside from everybody else that was watching the film, I enjoyed it very much. I knew this film was going to be awesome for me at least since I knew the entire back story and it was really fun to see something from my childhood brought to life in a parody like CGI film. I admit, there are parts in the film that seemed like…ugh or meh…but it was all for the randomness I guess. And there were hilarious parts such as the GIANT Enemy Crab. xD

All in all, I give it a 3 out of 5 based on only the film ALONE.

FanBoy Statistic – 5 out of 5