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Land of the Lost

Buzz says:   MPAA Rating: PG-13
Current Showtimes: No showtimes available

I had never seen the original Land of the Lost until the SciFi Channel showed a marathon the other day. Both it and the ’90s version I remember were pretty silly, so my only real interests in seeing the movie were the comedic talents of Will Ferrell and Danny McBride. Given the source material and the fact that Will Ferrell has built his career playing dumb people doing dumb things, it didn’t come as a shock that this movie was ridiculous.

Ridiculousness isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There are parts of Land of the Lost that are absolutely hilarious. That bit from the trailer with the giant mosquito sucking out most of Will Ferrell’s blood is pretty good. One particularly funny sequence features Ferrell’s self-serious Dr. Rick Marshall tripping on alternate universe drugs along with McBride’s Will Stanton and a monkey man named Cha-Ka (Jorma Taccone). The close up of McBride’s red-eyed face as he questions Cha-Ka about whether he’s a cop is hysterical. The movie’s other hilarious scene is Matt Lauer’s cameo as an angrier version of himself. It’s a delight to see him tackle and attempt to strangle Ferrell.

The funny parts of the movie are mostly laugh-out-loud funny, and that’s great. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough of those to make up for the rest of the movie. A lot of it feels like they did something with the intention of making people laugh, but it just comes off as weird instead. For example, there’s a running joke about showtunes. The first couple of times, it’s funny. After that, it’s just annoying. Seeing Ferrell do the whole over-confident moron thing again is also kind of tiring. He has done a better job of it in much funnier movies, so there’s really no reason for people to go see him run from dinosaurs and sleestaks when they can pull out their copy of Anchorman.

The two who provide the most laughs are actually McBride and Taccone. McBride offers his usual redneck idiocy, but given that he’s sharing the screen with Will Ferrell, his actually isn’t the stupidest character in the movie. As the monkey man, Taccone manages to come off as sweet while still fondling the girl’s boobs. Lonely Island fans should also appreciate the use of his singing talents. The girl, Holly (Anna Friel), is the straight woman amongst all the goofy guys, and all she really gets to do is be Ferrell’s love interest. She’s the one scientist who actually seems to know what she’s talking about, so she’s also useful from a plot standpoint, but she seems unnecessary.

The likelihood that anyone expects Land of the Lost to be a masterpiece is slim. Still, the jokes could be funnier. The clichés could be a little less obvious. For a movie based on a cheesy ’70s TV show, it could have been worse, but it also could have been better.