Movie Review Land of the Lost

Land of the Lost (2009) 

Directed by Brad Silberling

Written by Chris Henchy, Dennis McNicholas 

Starring Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, Anna Friel, Jorma Taccone

Release Date June 5th, 2009 

Published June 4th, 2009 

Land of the Lost was and is a bad idea for a movie. It's based on a Saturday morning kids show from the early 1970's with only a modicum of cultural cache from a group of hipster doofus types who love the cheesetastic sets, the wooden characters and slow moving rubber suited alien reptiles. There are those who have nostalgia for this but it is not a genuine appreciation, it's ironic. People loved how cheesy it looked. Cardboard sets and rubber costumes. Making a big budget Land of the Lost COMPLETELY misses the point. 

The core of Land of the Lost's existing fanbase was never going to go for anything involving the over the top antics of a mainstream pratfaller like Will Ferrell? In the mind of the hipster LOTL fan the only remake that could come close to capturing this cultural landmark is directed by Tarsem or Michel Gondry, whichever director would make the whole thing as some cardboard and cloth acid trip. The Land of the Lost movie we have in front of us is a confused hybrid of family movie adventure and adult targeted humor aimed just below the waistline. Not quite family friendly enough for the kids and not quite edgy enough for adults, Land of the Lost could not be more indicative of its title.

Will Ferrell stars in Land Of The Lost as Dr. Rick Marshall. As a scientist he has staked his career on a theory that wormholes to other dimensions could discover renewable sources of energy. Unfortunately, an ill-advised visit to the Today Show to tout his theory ends in a viral YouTube moment and Dr. Rick is labeled a buffoon.

Four years later, Dr. Rick Marshall is a lowly tour guide at the La Brea Tar Pits. There, he is visited by Holly (Anna Friel) a grad student from Cambridge who is the one person ever to take his theories seriously. Holly claims that she has crunched a few numbers and found some striking evidence that Marshall's theories aren't as crackpot as they seem.

Together, Rick and Holly visit a cheesy tourist trap cave ride where a tour guide named Will (Danny McBride) joins them in what turns out to be a successful test of Dr. Marshall's multi-dimensional device. In Marshall's words 'Matt Lauer can suck it'. Telling people to 'suck it' is about par for the course of the humor in Land of the Lost. 

That's the set up. The payoff includes non-sequiturs about time travel, dinosaurs, exceptionally large poop, a man pouring urine on himself and a giant blood sucking insect. Oh and the music of A Chorus Line. Why? Random! Land of the Lost wants to be all things to all audiences and tries just about every avenue in search of a punchline and while there are undeniable laughs in the movie, mostly it's just people throwing jokes at the screen and hoping one or two stick. 

On the bright side, Anna Friel brings a unique and endearing feminine energy to the boy-centric adventure. She is a fantasy figure who strips her jeans down to short shorts and doesn't seem all that bothered by all the groping, far too much groping. Yet, she is also portrayed as a strong, centered character who manages to leaven out the crazy energy of Ferrell and the Larry the Cable Guy-esque riffing of Danny McBride.

Scattershot is an understatement in describing the humor of Land of the Lost. The movie is all over the place with Ferrell and McBride each flailing for a punchline while Friel desperately clings to her dignity amid the bathroom humor and randomness. There are laughs in the movie but certainly not enough to justify a nearly 2 hour big budget comedy. Mostly, the result of Land of the Lost ranges from indifference to mild annoyance. 

Movie Review Limitless

Limitless (2011) 

Directed by Neil Burger

Written by Leslie Dixon 

Starring Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro, Anna Friel 

Release Date March 8th, 2011

Published March 7th, 2011

"Limitless" might have been more aptly titled 'Plot Device: The Movie.' The little clear pill that drives the film's star Bradley Cooper infuses him with whatever ability is needed at any given moment in the movie. At one point, when Cooper is assaulted by thugs in the subway, the pill lends him the ability to tap his memory for some Kung Fu he saw on TV years ago and the agility to employ it with force.

Now, as fun as it would be to be able to recall a little Bruce Lee and employ it viciously and at will this bit of wish fulfillment is all there is to "Limitless," a threadbare pseudo-thriller that relies on this limitless device for all of it's narrative force.

Wish Fulfillment

Eddie Morra (Cooper) is a loser, plain and simple. He lives in a dump of an apartment and while he has a contract to write a novel, he hasn't written a word. His girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) sees him for what he is and as we meet her she is dumping him. Things are looking very bleak when Eddie bumps into an old friend with a secret.

Vernon (Johnny Whitworth) is a drug dealer who Eddie knows through his very brief marriage years earlier. Vernon's secret is a new drug he is pushing that he claims is legitimate, even FDA approved. The clear pill with no marketable name allows the user to access portions of his brain not usually accessed.

God in the Machine

After a brief bout of worry, Eddie indeed takes the pill and the effect turns him into a superman of intuition, charm and motivation. Naturally, he will need more of this but to maintain his fix will take him into Eddie's dangerous world of drug dealers, loan sharks and into another, even more untamed frontier, Wall Street; where traders rob each other in ways somehow deemed legal.

I want this pill, I really do, and that identification with Eddie is enticing but it doesn't change the fact that director Brad Furman and screenwriter Leslie Dixon are working with the ultimate 'God in the Machine,' better known in Latin as 'Deus Ex Machina.' The pill allows Eddie and eventually Lindy, an easy escape from any danger and that removes a great deal of the story tension.

A Distinct Lack of Tension

Why worry about characters that can just take a pill and have all of their problems become easy to solve. There is a distinct lack of tension that plagues "Limitless" right to the very end. To be fair, there is one scene; one in which Cooper loses his magic pill, which has significant tension as Eddie is forced to do something unthinkable and entirely unpredictable.

One scene however does not excuse an entire film so blatantly based on a cheap device. Limitless is simply too easy going about it all. Star Bradley Cooper is too comfortable in the confines of this plot cheat, wielding it all with a confidence that only magnifies how shabby it all is.

If you're someone who doesn't like to think when you are at the movies, "Limitless" might just be the movie for you. The pill doesn't just help Eddie do anything; it helps the audience as well taking away all of that pesky sifting of plot details or deciphering of mysteries and especially all of that scary anxiety that comes when a movie challenges an audience.

Movie Review Timeline

Timeline (2003)

Directed by Richard Donner 

Written by George Nolfi, Jeff Maguire

Starring Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Billy Connelly, David Thewlis, Anna Friel, Michael Sheen, Ethan Embry, Martin Csokas

Release Date November 26th, 2003 

Published November 26th, 2003 

It's been five years since director Richard Donner last stepped behind a camera. That was for the deathly Lethal Weapon 4, a creaky cash grab of an action movie that made even the indomitable Mel Gibson look bad. In fact, it has been nearly 10 years since Donner has directed a good movie, 1994's Maverick (also with Gibson.) In his comeback, adapting Michael Crichton's time traveling novel, Timeline, Donner continues the downward slide of his once great career.

Paul Walker stars as Chris, the son of archaeologist Professor Edward Johnston (Billy Connelly). When the professor disappears on a job, his son and his crew of archaeology students including Marek (Gerard Butler), David (Ethan Embry) and Kate (Frances O'Conner) must follow his clues to find him. The Professor's last job was working for a mysterious corporation called ITC. The corporation’s scientists have figured a way to send human beings back in time but only to one specific location: Castleberg, France in the 14th century on the eve of war between the French and British.

Well, wouldn't you these students just happen to be experts in that exact era? In fact they are excavating that very battlefield. What an amazing coincidence. ITC has sent the Professor back to the 14th century and now want to send Chris and company back there to find him and bring him back. Oh but if it were that easy, we wouldn't have a movie. Accompanied by a shady military guy played by Neal McDonough and his two soon-to-be-dead lackeys, the gang has six hours to find the professor and get back to the future.

For Donner, working entirely on autopilot, the time travel plot is merely a clothesline on which to hang one lame action sequence after another. The action has the period authenticity of a high school production of Shakespeare. When we aren't being annoyed with the lame action scene, we are treated to plot points that screenwriters Jeff Maguire and George Nolfi obviously thought were clever. The script ham-handedly sets up things in the present that will payoff in the past. When the supposed payoffs come, the actors practically scream, "see how this paid off, wow aren't we clever.”

Some of the plot points pay off so obviously you can't help but giggle at the goofiness of it all. The actors react like children who just discovered a light switch and want to explain to the audience how it works.

For his part, Walker turns in yet another young Keanu Reeves impression. All that is missing is the signature "Whoa." Walker looks about as comfortable in period garb as Dom Deluise would in a thong. The rest of the cast isn't much better, especially a slumming Frances O'Connor as Walker's love interest. O'Connor was so good in Spielberg's A.I that scripts like this should be easy to pass on but somehow, here she is.

Donner's best days are clearly behind him. The man who made Lethal Weapon and Lethal Weapon II, arguably the best buddy movie franchise ever, and the man who made arguably the best superhero movie of all time--Superman with Christopher Reeve--has now settled into a depressing groove of just simply picking up his check and turning out below-average action movies that make for great posters but not much else.