FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS*

Bored as fuck watching FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS. No humour, no grand emotional revelations, no chemistry between the leads, hackneyed action scenes and scoring, unclear why it's in a retro-Jetsons world, wondering if it would have more fun to just watch reruns of The Jetsons.

In this reimagining of the unloved ginger stepchild of the Marvel universe, the ubiquitous Pedro Pascal (enough already!) plays astronaut turned mutant Reed Richards and The Crown's Princess Margaret, Vanessa Kirby, plays his fellow astronaut turned mutant and pregnant wife Sue Storm.  GLADIATOR 2's Joseph Quinn plays Sue's brother Johnny and the quartet is rounded out by The Bear's Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the poor fucker who spends the film playing a rock-like thing called... The Thing.  

As the film opens, earth is under attack from a generic Big Bad with an emissary called the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). The screenwriters try to have some IRON MAN style witty fun with Johnny asking her if the surfboard is part of her body. It lands flat. The plot revolves around the Big Bad wanting the astro-human baby because Power, and the astro-human baby's mum being understandably reluctant to give him up.  But I never really felt the stakes.  The family are so popular it's not like the humans are coming with pitchforks to steal the baby.  I never felt like the baby was at risk. I never felt like the mum was at risk. Rumble rumble, the end.

What a waste of on-screen talent. Especially Natasha Lyonne.  Director Matt Shakman (Wandavision): do better.  I think it's interesting that there are seven accredited screenwriters on this film, although to be fair that includes its comic-book creators. Maybe that speaks to its lack of forward momentum, clear linear narrative and muddiness. I also wonder whether with a concept so brilliantly deconstructed, parodied, but ultimately enhanced with THE INCREDIBLES, cinema-viewers have just moved beyond the source material.

FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS is available to screen on Disney+. It has a running time of 115 minutes and is rated PG-13.

SOCIETY OF THE SNOW*****

Spanish writer-director JA Bayona's retelling of the iconic 1972 Andes air crash is his career best work, which is a big call given how masterful his 2016 film a A MONSTER CALLS is.  There is evident care taken to listen to the testimony of the survivors and honour both their experience and that of the victims.  What lifts this film beyond earlier movies covering the same topic is its technological prowess in showing the crash, and then by contrast, the quiet moments of philosophical and moral contemplation as the survivors decide how to live.

The film opens with a brief but powerful essay on life before the crash. We see these young college students full of life and exuberance as they plan for a flight to Chile for a rugby match.  Within five minutes we are on board and the fun continues until the first dramatic moment of air turbulence shifts the mood. Bayona moves as fast as events would have in real time, showing the plane hit a storm, wildly gyrate before having its wings sheered off, the fuselage ripped, before crashing into a mountain. We feel the impact viscerally - it's the most frightening depiction of a crash yet seen on film - and matched in impact by an avalanche shown later in the film.  We feel the peril and the suffocation and claustrophobia of endless hostile snow.

And then we move into the main bulk of the film which has a far quieter, more contemplative tone.  The team captain with his quiet gentle manner becomes the leader of the 29 survivors, raising their morale, rationing food and organising their tasks. When their hope of rescue is quashed by a news report heard on the radio. And so they realise that they are on their own, with no food, but a misperception that Chile is just on the other side of the mountain. And so they take the fateful, profound decision to use the "protein" of their dead comrades, build strength, survive and achieve their own rescue. Two of them hike an incredible ten days, without any mountaineering equipment or experience or even a compass or a map, and achieve rescue.

The most moving scene is how JA Bayona chooses to end the film - showing the Society Of The Snow reassembled, now seemingly safe and clean in a hospital ward, but still emaciated. They look confused and concerned, maybe now facing up to the decisions they took and the improbability of their rescue and the injustice of who did and did not survive. Bayona chooses to give us the essential truth beyond the sensational headlines - that these boys survived because they were truly a society - they were friends, they trusted each other, they cared for each other, they helped each other do the unthinkable, and willed each other to survive. And that this community care is going to have to continue as the men process what they have been through.

SOCIETY OF THE SNOW is rated R and has a running time of 144 minutes. It played Venice 2023 and was released today on Netflix.

JOJO RABBIT - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Day Five

JOJO RABBIT is an absolute triumph - trust the people who voted it People's Choice at Toronto! Don't listen to the critics who are so scared of laughing first at what is, after all, a rightly difficult subject.  Because JOJO RABBIT is not just an hilariously brilliant satire on mass hysteria and fanaticism. It's also a deeply moving film that doesn't shy away from showing us the consequences of racism and totalitarianism, even while giving us hope that sheer human compassion will ultimately prevail.

The conceit of the film is that young Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is a ten year old boy who has been indoctrinated by the Nazis and is so fanatically devoted to Hitler (Taika Waititi) that he imagines him to be his imaginary friend.  Meanwhile Jojo's wonderfully funny but straightforward mother (Scarlett Johansson) doesn't hesitate to criticise "Shitler" and forces Jojo to see the consequences of his actions, all the while loving him. When Jojo gets injured at his Hitler Youth summer camp, run by the brilliantly funny but ultimately much more profound Captain K (Sam Rockwell) he has to spend his days at home, and it's there that he discovers his mum is hiding a teenage Jewish girl (Thomasin McKenzie) in the attic. And so we discover what happens when an indoctrinated boy faces an actual human being that he has learned to hate.

I went into the film expecting a black comedy in the vein of THE PRODUCERS and it is one of the funniest films I've seen in years. The physical comedy of Rockwell and Rebel Wilson - even Alfie Allen in almost wordless role.  Stephen Merchant as a Gestapo officer with his goons Heil Hiterling away. And most of all Taika Waititi as Hitler, delusional and jealous of Jojo's new friendship.

But what makes this film great is its subtle intelligence and profound humanity.  Take for example the opening credits using a German-language Beatles track over archive footage of Hitler Youth screaming for their Fuhrer.  This beautifully makes a point about mass hysteria and how easily crowds can be led. It also contrasts with beautifully with a German-language Bowie track at the end, the ultimate icon of individuality and nonconformity.

Or take the example of Waititi's Hitler - largely goofy but in one point of anger ranting and raving as the Fuhrer did when he worked himself  up in a hysterical fit - and it's genuinely and rightly scary. When Waititi as director wants to pack a punch he does - a pivotal scene is absolutely breathtakingly painful to endure. And Waititi also knows when to misdirect, making us think one character is in danger when another is.  Or take the altogether subtle moment when a joke about mass Heil-Hitlering becomes morbid and desperate because a Jewish girl has to force herself to do it.  And finally consider the responsibility of Waititi in not allowing us to turn our heads from the horror of war and genocide - and the fact that all hilarity aside, we are shown and told of the gravity of the situation.

For me, JOJO RABBIT is a success because it so beautifully finds the balance between satire and profound emotion - because it never shies away from its responsibilities in tackling the subject matter, while also allowing us to triumph over evil through laughter. The film tells us twice that to dance is to be free, and to express our joy and hope and happiness. I think laughing does much the same. I am reminded of that brilliant youtube meme that rebus a clip from THE DOWNFALL, with Hitler losing his shit that a Polynesian Jew is playing him in a film.  I laugh because I am free to laugh. In the words of Jojo, "Fuck you, Hitler."

JOJO RABBIT has a running time of 108 minutes and is rated PG-13. The film played Toronto and London 2019 and will open in the USA on October 18th and in the UK on January 3rd 2020.

INCREDIBLES 2

The Incredible family is back, but out of work when the world turns against superheroes.  But have no fear! Superrich siblings appear offering Mrs I a job as a private sector superhero complete with PR rehabilitation plan.  When did anything in this world ever go wrong with American superrich siblings involved? So dad stays at home with kids - cue lots of jokes about how tough childcare is - especially when baby Jack Jack has superpowers too. And mum goes off to fight a newly emerged super villain called Screenslaver. No guesses as to who that turns out to be in real life.  

The resulting film is visually witty and of course the domestic duty role reversal throws up a lot of good gags. But I couldn't help but feel that this sequel lacked a little elan and all felt a bit predictable and blah.  The animation is of course superb and the design wonderful but animated films have moved on since the original and this film just hasn't.  In a world where the cutting edge of animated design and wit is defined by SPIDERMAN: INTO THE SPIDERVERSE - this film seems rather old-fashioned - stuck in time 14 years ago when it was pioneering. Does this sort of middle-age middle-class humour about old-fashioned men struggled to take care of a kid really feel relevant anymore?

INCREDIBLES 2 is available to rent and own.  It has a running time of 118 minutes and is rated PG.

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM

This film is utterly without merit, joy, wonder or intelligence  It is a shameless cash-in on a tired franchise, without any of the majesty of the original.  Even worse, it teases us with memories of that film with an early cameo from Jeff Goldblum and a late cameo from BD Wong. Worst of all, it wastes the talents of arthouse director J A Bayona, who made the exceptional A MONSTER CALLS. 

In this new instalment, a few years after the dinos go bonkers on Isla Nubar, a volcano threatens to make them all extinct again. Goldblum's rational scientist argues for this but reformed park exec Bryce Dallas Howard now wants to rescue them as living creatures deserving of our help. In doing so she enlists the help of ex-lover and dino handler Chris Pratt, and is funded by James Cromwell's dying billionaire and ex partner of the park's original founder.  Of course, the moral of this series was always that the real monsters weren't the killer dinos but the evil capitalist bastards who sought to exploit them. And so it goes with this non-surprising plot-twist.

The whole thing is over-loud, over-long, emotionally involving and lacking in intelligence. Avoid.

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM is rated 12A and has a running time of 128 minutes.

COCO

Miguel is a little Mexican boy who lives with his close-knit extended family, complete with seemingly ancient and senile great-grandma Mama Coco. His family are shoemakers but Miguel dreams of being a musician like his hero - the famous but now dead singer Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt). The only problem is that Miguel's family are  against music of any kind and are determined not just to make Miguel a shoemaker in the family tradition, but to erase all memory of his Mama Coco's father - another wannabe musician who apparently abandoned his family.  The consequences of this are that his great grandpa's photo is not laid out with the rest of the ancestral portraits on the Day of the Dead, so that he cannot visit with his family.  Of course, this is just pre-amble. The story truly begins when Miguel is magicked into the world of the dead, and begins a quest to find Ernesto de la Cruz and get his blessing to return and to sing! Along the way he learns much about his family history, and also about the pride and love of coming from a large family.  

In COCO, director Lee Unkrich (TOY STORY 3) creates a truly wondrous, uplifting and profound film of the kind that only Pixar seems able to create.  The animation was bold, beautiful and kinetic - the music truly memorable - and the story well-paced and exciting. But what makes this film stand out is its nuanced and meaningful examination of the ties of family and the dangers of legacy and the power of memory. It'a film that resonated with me - coming from a large Asian family - and I'm pleased to see old grannies taking off their shoe to scold an impudent upstart is not just an Indian trope!  Most of all this film made me cry. And not the cheap deliberately engineered tears of a manipulative melodrama. But genuine, hard-won tears from investing in a little boy's story, in his family, and seeing a loving reconciliation. This is animated storytelling at its most ambitious, intelligent, and affecting.

COCO has a running time of 105 minutes and is rated PG. It is on global release. 

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES is an emotionally affecting, visually impressive, intelligent conclusion to the new trilogy of films that began with RISE and more recently DAWN.  As the film opens we find our sensitive ape hero, Caesar (Andy Serkis) holed up in a forest, fighting off incursions from the Colonel's soldiers.  The apes position is unsustainable, so Caesar entrusts his best friend Maurice to lead the tribe to a promised land across the mountains (very deliberate biblical parallels here). Meanwhile Caesar and a handful of followers goes on a revenge mission.  Along the way he encounters a young mute girl, who we will learn will become the future Nova (for those familiar with the Charlton Heston movie) and a tragicomically traumatised monkey called Bad Ape (Steve Zahn).  The bulk of the movie is, then, set in the ape prison camp run by Woody Harrelson's Colonel. We see infiltration, capture, and escape plans hatched and dramatic action sequences.

The resulting film is brilliantly nuanced and resonant.  Caesar is our hero, but he's guilt-ridden for killing his militant ape enemy Koba in the previous film.  We also have to consider the conflict between the needs of his tribe for a leader and his need for personal vengeance.  The Colonel is similarly nuanced despite an exaggerated performance, deliberately echoing Brando as Colonel Kurtz.  As the movie progresses we learn that he too is under threat for taking harsh and perhaps justified decisions that parallel Caesar's decision to kill Koba. And, in observing the Colonel's fate, one can't help but suspect that maybe he was right. 

There are certain aspects of this film that I suspect everyone will like.  The cinematography is spectacular.  The mist rising from the forest - the green gun lights shining through a waterfall and into a darkened cave - apes on horses riding across a beach in the morning sunlight reflected in the ripples of sand. And it's hard not to get drawn into the trials of Caesar - a character we have come to know and love over three movies, and to be affected at the mutual admiration between Caesar and Maurice. 

As for the rest, it will very much depend on your tolerance for the broad strokes of "big" cinema.  I have also mentioned Woody Harrelson's literally cigar-chomping performance as the messianic cult leader Colonel. And little Nova is very much an angelic martyr to the genetic mutations that are now sweeping mankind after the Simian flu epidemic.  But it's Caesar where the metaphors work hardest and loudest.  He is cast as a kind of Christ, crucified on the prison frame, and then as a kind of Moses, leading his apes to the Promised Land. And then, along the way, we have echoes of prison films from KWAI to THE GREAT ESCAPE to UNBROKEN and Caesar as the beaten up hero of them all. I personally loved this recasting of the prison film genre with a sensitive and intelligent ape as the lead. But for some, this could become ham-fisted. 

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 140 minutes.  The film is on global release. 

DOCTOR STRANGE

DOCTOR STRANGE is a patchwork quilt of a Marvel movie.  Pleasant enough to watch, but undeserving of a second view, in which almost every character, action sequence or funny line echoes another film, and the only originality comes not from the central character but from Tilda Swinton.  It's visually arresting but emotionally hollow mid-tier Marvel of a kind that - with a release calendar chock full of B-grade comic book characters -  I have become rather bored by. 

As with IRON MAN, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a rich materialistic egotistical genius brought low by a severe accident, who supplements his physical healing process with "super powers".   As with SHERLOCK, Strange has a perfect memory and a fondness for being right.  As with StarChild, Strange has a fondness for cheesy seventies hits.  Strange was a successful but cocky surgeon who texts while driving and ends up in an horrific car crash that renders his hands unfit for surgery.  In desperation, he journeys to Nepal where he finds a mystical Jedi Master, sorry, Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who puts him through a training regime straight out of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  I kid you not, there's even a "judge me by my size, do you" sequence. It turns out that, quelle surprise, Strange has a rare aptitude for astral projection and drawing energy from other dimensions of the multiverse to cast magic spells.  He even gets a cool gadget that allows his to reverse time.  (Do you think that will be significant?!) He also gets a HARRY POTTER style set of magical gadgets, including a sentient cloak that actually reminded me a bit of Terry Pratchett's luggage.  So armed, he goes off to fight the Ancient One's former pupil turned evil villain (Mads Mikkelsen) who wants to open Earth up to an eviller villain whose name sounds like Dormouse.  Oh yes, I forgot that Strange has an ex-girlfriend played by Rachel McAdams who's also a surgeon but she has nothing to do but simper.  He also has sidekicks at his zen school played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Benedict Wong who exist to show a moral centre and comic relief respectively. 

ZOOTOPIA aka ZOOTROPOLIS

ZOOTOPIA/ZOOTROPOLIS is a pointed but obvious commentary about racism and sexism in supposedly multicultural western society. As such, its trenchant criticism comes at an apposite time in world politics.  But it rather wants to have its cake and eat it.  And I'm not sure it's any fun for kids. Because, after all, this is a kids animated feature!

The movie comes from directors Rich Moore (WRECK IT RALPH) and Byron Howard (TANGLED).  It posits a world full of anthropomorphic animals who live in apparent harmony because they have evolved beyond the predator/prey instinct. This is meant to be a world in which anyone can achieve anything - a spin on the American Dream. Of course, the real world is not, in the words of Captain Bogo, "some cartoon musical where you sing a little song and all your insipid dreams magically come true. So let it go." In other words, this movie is a clash between those hokey Disney values of yore, and our more post-modern cynical sensibilities. 

INSIDE OUT

INSIDE OUT is the phenomenally successful new Pixar movie from the directors of two films I really adored - UP and RATATOUILLE.  It's smart, witty and beautifully imagined and rendered. But for some reason it just didn't connect with me on an emotional level. In fact, two days after seeing it, the thing I remember most about my movie watching experience was the Pixar short film, LAVA, that preceded the feature. I can still sing that song and feel moved by the plight of the little volcano hoping for love.  INSIDE OUT was clever, and pretty, but I'm just not sure it's going to stay with me in that way.

This is often the problem with high concept film. INSIDE OUT posits a world in which our emotions are neatly split into five key feelings, and whichever of these controls our mood generates our memories and our feelings.  So, at first glance, our protagonist is an eleven year old girl called Riley, struggling with moving across country with her family, feeling pressured to keep a happy face for her stressed out dad, but inwardly hating it all.  But the real star of the show is Riley's emotion, Joy, played by Amy Poehler (PARKS & RECREATION).  Joy has, up to this point, been largely in charge of Riley's emotions resulting in lots of happy memories.  And Joy ascribes part of her success to keeping Sadness (THE OFFICE's Phyllis Smith) firmly off the controls.  So the coming of age journey is not really for Riley but for Joy, as she learns that everyone needs a little sadness to make the happier times happy by contrast. And sometimes a good cry, admitting your suffering, allows others to reach out to you and for you to resolve, rather than smother, your issues.  So in that sense, this is a radical children's movie, for while it still gives us a happy ending, that happiness is conditional on admitting that it's okay to be sad.

TOMORROWLAND

You can listen to a podcast review of this film here or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes.

Apparently Brad Bird (THE INCREDIBLES) turned down the opportunity to direct the new STAR WARS movie to make TOMORROWLAND which shows that he's a numskull. But maybe we should all be relieved if his new clunker, TOMORROWLAND, is anything to go by.  This may well be the worst live action movie that Disney has ever made, and it's certainly one of the most expensive.  What were they thinking? Who thought George Clooney, the star of suave adult heist films was going to be a relatable anchor for a kids movie. And what made them think that Damon Lindelof, who led us all down the rabbit-hole with his TV show Lost, and then messed up the ALIEN mythos with PROMETHEUS, was going to be able to write a movie with a premise simple enough to get kids excited and on the edge of their seats?  What made them think that once Shailene Woodley had turned down the role, that charisma-free actress Britt Robertson would be able to fill her shoes?

JUPITER ASCENDING

You can listen to  a podcast review of the film below or subscribe to Bina007 Movie Reviews in iTunes:



I can't work out whether JUPITER ASCENDING is a cunning satire on early twenty-first century capitalism and Hollywood's obsession with youth or just a steaming mess.  

The Wachowski Siblings have created a world in which in human beings are just a commodity, harvested by oligarchs to create a serum for eternal youth.  The market-leaders in this harvesting business are three siblings of the Abrasax family.  The elder is Balem played by Eddie Redmayne in a performance so camp it goes beyond parody and into plain bad.  His rivals are his sister Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) and playboy brother Titus (Douglas Booth).  Humans are playthings for these future gods, until they discover that Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), an earthling cleaning lady, has the exact same DNA as their murdered mother.  Clearly all three siblings now have an incentive to find Jupiter, register her as their mother reincarnated, get her to claim title to the corporation they inherited, and run the world through her.  I say clearly because none of the above is clear or makes any sense.  And that's before I get to the space police staffed with cross-bred human-animal combos with angelic wings (Channing Tatum and Sean Bean).

London Film Fest 2011 Day 3 - 50/50

Anna Kendrick, Will Reiser and Seth Rogen present 50/50

50/50 is that most difficult of tricks to pull off - a movie that is both raucously funny and genuinely affecting.  For that we have to thank the loosely autiobiographical screenplay from Will Reiser and direction from Jonathan Levine (THE WACKNESS, ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE) that keeps the movie in delicate balance.  That balance is key - because this movie is about a young man struggling to beat an aggressive cancer, enduring chemo and surgery, and even then only with a 50/50 chance of survival. It's the subject matter of afternoon TV movies and melodramas.  What saves us (mostly) from emotional manipulation is the the brutal honesty and hilarity with which the topic is treated - everything from getting high on medical-strength weed, to trashing a flaky ex-girlfriends painting with eggs and knives, to exploiting having cancer to get laid by sympathetic chicks.  In other words, Reiser manages to avoid mawkishness (at least until the final fifteen minutes) by transforming his experience of cancer treatment into a "bromance" complete with adult humour.  To that end, the absolute hear of the flick is the relationship between Jospeh Gordon-Levitt as the cancer victim and all-round good egg, and Kyle - the kind of typically loud-mouthed, vulgar but heart-of-gold character that Seth Rogen always plays. The supporting cast is also first class, with Angelica Huston adding dramatic weight as Adam's mother; Anna Kendrick showing her comedic chops as Adam's therapist; and Bryce Dallas Howard deliciously shitty and cast against type as Adam's girlfriend.  If I have a criticism of this otherwise superb movie, it's that one might feel emotionally manipulated in the final reel.  I can see that intellectually, but I totally bought into the relationships in the film, was right their with Kyle in the waiting room during Adam's surgery, and enjoyed every minute of the experience.  

50/50 played Toronto and London 2011. It played Aspen where it won the Audience Award and  Hollywood where Joseph Gordon-Levitt won the Breakthrough Award for Actor of the Year. 50/50 opened in the USA in September. It opens in Portugal on November 10th; in France on November 16th; in Hong Kong and the Netherlands on November 17th; in the UK on November 25th; in Hungary and Japan on December 1st; in Sweden on December 2nd; andin Ireland on January 4th.

London Film Fest 2010 Day 2 - LET ME IN

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN was one of the best films I saw in 2009. A beautiful, delicate, fragile little love story between two pre-teens in suburban Sweden - finding comfort in each other's company. He is the child of divorce, bullied at school, ignored by everyone else, deeply, violently frustrated and in search of emotional warmth. She is a little kid without friends, dragged from town to town, isolated, odd, and surprised to find a misfit she can relate to - someone her own age.  The story had a sinister under-tone. She was a vampire, kept by an older man. But the presumption of paedophilia was over-turned - she was exploiting his weakness to satisfy her own craving for blood. It was this contrast - between her power over the older man and his twisted love for her - and the apparently more innocent but unreal relationship she had with the little boy - that made the film powerful. Its horror was emotional - rather than dependent on the old man murdering people to satisfy his young lover's blood-addiction.  

By contrast, Matt Reeves's (CLOVERFIELD) Hollywood remake is clumsy, garish and utterly without merit.  At every possible moment, Reeves amps up the horror and gore at the expense of the delicate emotional story.  The opening scene is straight from slasher-horror; the little girl is given the voice of Regan possessed in THE EXORICST, and CGI is used so clumsily as to give the murder-in-the-tunnel scene an unreal, almost comedic vibe that utterly took me out of the story.  The only scenes that worked were the quiet scenes on the climbing frame that were shot for shot remakes of the original. These scenes allowed Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee to shine in the central performances. But whenever Reeves' took the story in his own direction it became just another generic horror flick. 

Now, in fairness, I walked out of this film half an hour before the end because I was so disgusted with its dumbing down of the source material. That final half hour might have redeemed it. I doubt it. I should've listened to Bateman's prejudice about Hollywood remakes never adding anything to the original. I went in with an open mind, I assure you, but I was proved wrong.

Additional tags: Greig Fraser, Kodi Smit-McPhee,

LET ME IN played Toronto 2010 and is currently on release in the US, Canada, Belgium, France and Australia. It opens in Spain next week and in the UK and the Netherlands on November 5th. It opens in New Zealand on December 2nd.

Late review - LAND OF THE LOST

The problem with LAND OF THE LOST is that it doesn't know what kind of a movie it wants to be, and so it ends up being an nothing at all. It's not a kids adventure with crazy CGI in the manner of JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH. It's not a successful spoof of a much-loved TV series, in the manner of STARSKY AND HUTCH. It's not a faux-naif comedy in the manner of PINEAPPLE EXPRESS. Bottom line: it's just not entertaining.

The writers and director have radically changed the source-text. Instead of having a normal family trapped in an alternate dimension, as in the TV show, they have Will Ferrell playing his typical "love-able" loser, this time manifested as a crack-pot scientist. Anna Friel plays his more sensible assistant. They take his latest invention into a decaying theme park ride, run by Danny McBride, playing that typical Danny McBride effeminate, wise-ass, and all three are sucked into another dimension where dinosaurs roam the sands, and a monkey-man called Chaka helps them out.

By this point, I was bored beyond belief. Stuff happens. I got to thinking about the Will Ferrel persona. I mean, there is something seriously creepy about watching a middle-aged man play his brand of narcissistic, self-destructive loser again and again. It's not funny so much as disturbing. He needs a new act and/or to be better constrained within a better-written script.

LAND OF THE LOST was released earlier this year in Canada, the US, Australia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Singapore, Ukraine, New Zealand, Kuwait and Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Argentina, Chile, the UK, Spain and Mexico. It opens in September in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Portugal. It opens in October in Germany, the Netherlands, and Finland. It opens in November in Denmark and in December on Italy, Belgium and France.