Monday, March 17, 2008

Advance Script Review: Land of the Lost; stinks?


From AICN, Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas' script for a big-screen spoof of Land of the Lost is so bad it makes me want to murder Sid and Marty Krofft just so they could roll in their graves when it hits theaters. And when I suggest that the Kroffts would roll in their graves, I'm not suggesting that this script desecrates the hallowed mythology they laid down in the cheesy original Saturday-morning series. That show had no mythology – it was so bad it was un-desecratable. No, I just think this movie will suck because – of all things – it's not obnoxious enough.

I barely remember the original show, but if memory serves, a family of three gets pulled into an alternate Lost World-style dimension populated by dinosaurs, cavemen and insectoid creatures called the sleestak. The script keeps most of these elements intact, but instead of a family, the updated story focuses on a disgraced, fringe scientist who doggedly supports the existence of time warps and dimensional portals. During the movie, he meets his two fellow castaways in the Land of the Lost – an attractive scientist who actually believes his crackpot theory, and a small-town kook who runs a fireworks stand and gets caught up in the action. The word on the street is that Will Ferrell and Anna Friel have been cast in the two leads, and this bodes very, very well for this movie. Before I go on, let me explain my affection for Will Ferrell.

I imagine that most moviegoers of the last couple generations got to know Will Ferrell through his willingness to run around in his tightie-whities. I haven't seen every Ferrell movie out there, but I know he pulled that stunt in Old School and Talladega Nights.

Fortunately, though, Ferrell found some success onscreen, and we got to see that he can listen as well as he can mug. It turns out that like Jim Carrey – who channeled Jimmy Stewart for his wonderfully understated performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Ferrell's "eager-to-please doofus" persona is merely the breadwinner for a totally respectable character actor.

Read rest of review here

1 comment:

Octopunk said...

Spoof? How do you spoof a Sid and Marty Krofft show? Are they gonna "spoof" Electra Woman and Dyna Girl next?

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...