Land of the Lost: Critic Reviews

Land of the Lost has stray amusing 
tidbits, but overall it leaves you feeling splattered.

The only marginally interesting, if unsurprising, thing about Land of the Lost is that a lot of money has been spent on yet another cultural throwaway.

It is very surreal, absurd, and often quite gross, with loads of very arch and knowing gags. It's not going to win any awards. Really, it's a DVD rental. There are some laughs. I laughed, anyway.

Land of the Lost is not completely terrible, and it moves briskly and safely, even though its more laugh-worthy bits have already been seen in endless commercials for the movie.

Genially terrible, Lost is lazy, sloppy multiplex filler, good for a few solid giggles and not much more.

This Land exists at the bottom of the pop-cultural barrel.

This dramatically, thematically and artistically bankrupt comic fantasy cost something in the neighborhood of $100 million to make and isn't worth the celluloid it's printed on.

It all amounts to a certain brand of comedy -- something closer to long-form Dada than conventional humor.

Always weird, sometimes aimless but occasionally really funny.

What next: The Banana Splits movie?

The interesting thing, though, when you actually see "Land of the Lost," is that it ... essentially functions as a high-cost, high-gloss parody of itself.

Confronted with such effects, the actors make not the slightest effort to appear terrified, amazed or sometimes even mildly concerned. Some might consider that a weakness. I suspect it is more of a deliberate choice, and I say I enjoyed it.

The movie is 90 minutes of bickering and blase under-reaction to outrageous events, interrupted by gross-out scraps such as Ferrell's run-in with an enormous mosquito, which ends with a tremendous amount of blood and guts.

Not exactly a hundred million dollars' worth of classic comedy.

This isn't the Land of the Lost you remember from childhood, but get on its antisocial wavelength and it's fitfully laugh-out-loud funny.

When it comes to movies, there's good stupid and there's just plain stupid. Land of the Lost is just plain stupid, and that's not good.

Many of the bits are far too adult for children, yet no adult with a brain bigger than a walnut -- inside joke the filmmakers evidently thought was hilarious -- would find the story the least bit compelling.

Modernizing a 1970s children's TV show known for its cheap special effects offered certain possibilities, but the filmmakers have traded in any kid-friendly elements for bathroom humor of dinosaur-sized proportions.

Pity the unwitting parents who take their kids to see Land of the Lost, Will Ferrell's terminally stupid, sloppy, campy and cheesy -- and thoroughly unexciting and unfunny -- experiment in 'family entertainment.'

Stupid on an epic scale or epic on a stupid one, Land of the Lost is as close as Will Ferrell comes these days to a 'kid friendly' movie.

[The screenwriters] haven't given Ferrell a single witty line, which may explain why he seems to be so grimly going through the motions. The jokes aren't just worn out, they're clubbed to death.

The only discernible intention in Land of the Lost, the latest comedy starring Will Ferrell acting like Will Ferrell, seems to have been to take a slight idea and make the least of it in a very expensive way.

Land of the Lost is harmless enough. It just isn't, with the exception of a few odd air pockets, particularly funny.

Land of the Lost is an enjoyable regression to Saturday mornings gone by, as junky and sweet as a strawberry Pop-Tart.

Dull, unfunny, and completely unsuitable for viewing by anyone who isn't a charter member of the Will Farrell fan club.