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June 4, 2009
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Dork vs. Dork: Land of the Lost OK, my memories of Land of the Lost are murky hallucination (a hazy blur of time, not of the usual Sid and Marty Krofft pharma-reasons). In fact I was under the impression that Will Marshall was originally portrayed by Patrick Duffy (of Step by Step and Dallas fame). THIS IS BESIDE THE POINT, THOUGH. No amount of half-remembered nostalgia criticism can derail the truth-omotive light rail of Will Ferrell and Danny McBride humor. While the hater-players of mass media film comedy may blast Ferrell for his early films (Superstar and Night at the Roxbury, I’m looking at you), he has remained consistently funny and McBride has yet to utter a flubbed joke or deflated zinger in my experience. Their jointly produced Eastbound & Down was one of the humor highlights of last year. Sure, director Brad Siberling is responsible for the jilted ramshackle Lemony Snicket film, but to his credit he did helm an episode of Cop Rock (widely regarded as the Velvet Underground of network TV Musical Police Procedurals). And if directing dancing signing cops doesn’t qualify you for remaking Land of the Lost well then lock me up Sally ’cause I don’t want to be right. Pedigrees aside, Land of the Lost has Sleestak, and those googly-eyed lizard men scare the bran muffins out of me. So, if not for the guarantee of brontosaurus-inspired Ferrell banter we should be excited just to see creepy dinos-o-men engaging in elaborate chase sequences. Like V meets Benny Hill. Everybody wins! — Glenn Given Dan Responds Wait, let me guess – I’m betting that at some point in Land of the Lost, Will Ferrell loses his pants and runs around screaming like a goof. That is only hilarious the first few times. I don’t know why they decided to redo the Sid and Marty Krofft kid show from the ’70s. It was for kids, it had cool mate paintings, it had, well, from a kids’ point of view, completely amazing dinosaurs. And the Sleestaks...those things scared the heck out of me. Are there even Sleestaks in the new movie? Who knows. In this new version, it just doesn’t even matter. I mean, Ferrell fights a T-Rex. (I’ll bet that’s where he loses his pants.) It’s really just depressing when you think about it. Forget for the moment that the director’s claim to fame is Lemony Snicket or that the writers have literally never scripted a movie or that Anna Friel’s credit list reads like a going-out-of-business sale at the VHS store. What’s annoying is that Ferrell is beginning to slide down the Adam Sandler path of idiot man characters. There is likely a good movie out there with Ferrell’s name on it, and I certainly appreciate Elf, but this can’t possibly be it. Worse than ruining something great from our childhood, worse than using special effects to hide bad writing, this movie just looks boring. Go rent the original. — Dan Szczesny Glenn Responds
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5/21/2009 Terminator Salvation 5/7/2009 Star Trek
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