Sid and Marty Kroft’s original Land of the Lost was by no means a shining moment in television history, but it was harmless enough fun for the Saturday morning kiddie audience of the '70s. This big screen version, which opens area wide tomorrow, takes the basic premise of that series. While on an expedition, Marshall (Will Ferrell), Will (Danny McBride) and Holly (Anna Friel) are transported by a device of Marshall’s design to a strange world inhabited by an ape man Chakka (Jorma Taccone), dinosaurs and alien lizard men called Sleestaks. Unlike the show, however, the movie goes for intentional laughs with gratuitous breast fondling, gay jokes, dinosaur urine showers and a little light blasphemy. We're a long way from Saturday morning here, and none of the jokes are even remotely funny. Land of the Lost fails just as completely with its action-adventure elements. The characters get chased by a CGI allosaurus, and there are a few tepid fight scenes with the Sleestaks, but thrilling stuff it ain’t. It doesn’t even feel like there’s a real script here. It’s like the cast and crew went off with a rough idea for a movie written on a cocktail napkin and just made the rest up as they went along, figuring Ferrell and McBride’s antics and some mid-level special effects would cover up any shortcomings. No such luck. This is just an awful movie, and a strong contender for the year’s worst. *
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