Land of the Lust

At this stage, it seems highly improbable that anyone cares much what I have to say about the LAND OF THE LOST movie that it took me forever to see. I do often find, however, that when I want to see a new movie and I haven’t caught a press screening of it, I am rarely able to make the time to get to it opening weekend. Which makes me wonder how meaningful all the hype is that we place on opening weekend. Am I the only one?

Anyway, LAND OF THE LOST is kind of fascinating, in that I cannot imagine a studio executive looking at it and going, “Yeah, this’ll be a blockbuster for us.” It’s a failure of sorts, and yet a compelling one. I should preface that I have not seen the original show, but have absorbed some notion of it via general pop-culture — my impression is that it was basically Swiss Family Robinson with dinosaurs. Feel free to correct me on that. Will Ferrell seems to have been cast solely because he played the character “Marshall Willenholly” in JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK, a play on the lead character names in LAND of Marshall, Will, and Holly.

I lived with a couple of major potheads back in college, during the big-time rise of Cartoon Network, and so of course was subjected to numerous discussions of how Scooby and Shaggy were actually potheads, and Scrappy was on meth, and Fred should totally have sex with Velma instead of that bitch Daphne, etc., etc. I also remember when James Gunn was hired to write a Scooby-Doo movie and Aint It Cool went crazy with hatred for him, assuming it was gonna be a post-modern, wink-wink stoner joke. It wasn’t — there was one discreet reference to the subtext, but the movie was generally faithful and played to kids — but AICN still nursed a hate hard-on. And yet now they praise LAND OF THE LOST. Which is interesting, because LAND OF THE LOST, more than any other movie I’ve ever seen, appears to have been written by pothead college students while watching the original.

“Dude, man, what if that dinosaur totally fuckin’ swallowed Marshall and then shit him out?”
“That’s fucked up! Man, you know Cha-Ka’s totally horny for Holly, man. He should grab her boobs.”
“Yeah, and Marshall’s a fag. I bet he likes show tunes and shit.”
“How do Sleestaks fuck, man? They’ve got no wieners an’ shit.” [Note: I am aware that the plural of Sleestak is, officially, "Sleestak." But my imaginary stoners don't know this.]
“That’s why they’re evil, bro, it’s cuz they can’t get laid.”
“Oh yeah! HEEEE! That’s fucked up.”

Seriously, that is the tone of the movie. And in fairness, it stays totally consistent. It also has some of the worst editing I’ve ever seen — not GLADIATOR-style over-editing, just scenes where you wonder, “Wait, how did they get here from that last scene?” It’s a really awkward, skit-based narrative flow that makes it feel like large chunks were simply excised at random. Maybe they were or weren’t…this is, after all, a movie whose entire plot could be described (or not described) as improvised.

Our heroes this time are not a family, but rather, severely wrong-headed paleontologist Dr. Marshall (Ferrell), his enthusiastic English groupie Holly (Anna Friel) and souvenir-store owner Will (Danny McBride). Via some fake science that really doesn’t hold up to any scrutiny (nor is it meant to), they end up in a parallel dimension where dinosaurs exist side-by-side with the caveman-like Pakuni, and the reptilian Sleestak, the latter of which are being manipulated in a battle of wills between two more-evolved looking Sleestak, one of whom is voiced by Leonard Nimoy.

Our dubious protagonists save the life of outcast Pakuni prince Cha-Ka (McBride’s HOT ROD costar Jorma Taccome), who runs out to be a dirty little pervert, and not necessarily a lot of help. But he does get them all high at least once.

Then there’s a running gag involving a T-Rex named Grumpy who apparently understands English, and nurses a grudge against Marshall for saying that dinosaurs have small brains. And of course Ferrell gets his obligatory moment of showing off his flabby, hairy chest. I actually feel a lot better about my own physical conditioning after seeing McBride and Ferrell together. McBride, who is godly as always, totally pulls off that whole Appalachian bad dude in sleeveless shirts look that I also sport…so that’s cool. Also, near the end he gets to do a scene opposite a near-naked Eve Mauro…as I did in WICKED LAKE. So we have more stuff in common. Also, he drinks beer. Hooray beer!

I wanted to love the movie. And I do love that director Brad Silberling seems to have finally gotten over his need to make every movie be in some way about his dead girlfriend. But it’s too flawed to love unconditionally, while at the same time being too damn bizarre to hate. I suspect it will have a future in college apartments much like the aforementioned one I used to inhabit.

Go check it out. It’s worth a look. And it’s probably hit your local dollar theater by now.