New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Eric Hughes: Yeah, I can't say I was ever interested in seeing this one. I kinda passed it off as Will Ferrell kidvid (Kicking and Screaming anyone?) and forgot about it. Then I come to find out it's actually rated PG-13, which drew a huge question mark over my head.

David Mumpower: First of all, between this and Bewitched, it's safe to say that Will Ferrell should never do a television show re-make again. Second of all, this is the latest example of something fundamental that bothers me about the studio system. Too often, the question asked is "can we re-make this classic property" when the more pertinent question is "SHOULD we re-make this classic property". Execs starting seeing dollar signs based around ancillary merchandising revenue and they get ahead of themselves. If you took 20 movie analysts, stuck them in a room and asked, "Would Land of the Lost make for a good movie adaptation?", at least 18 would say "I doubt it." The fact that $100 million got thrown at this production anyway frankly astounds me. There needs to be some sort of Vice President of Basic Logic at the various studios/corporations. Things like this wouldn't slip through the cracks.

Pete Kilmer: As well managed the marketing was on The Hangover you can say the exact opposite happened here, as it was marketed as a tweener/family film. And it wasn't. Not at all. In fact, I know a couple of parents who were extremely ticked at some of the subject matter in the movie. I think the idea of a Land of the Lost family movie really could have worked. A father and his kids lost in some distorted Earth could have been really fun. Remember the opening of Jurassic Park when Grant and the kids got there and then things went bad? They surely could have done something like that here, a real adventure romp that families are looking for (how else do you explain Brendan Fraser's Journey to the Center of the Earth). Instead, you get Will Ferrell doing his man-child act again, which hasn't worked for a few years now, and you get a movie with material that isn't really right for kids. The beauty of the TV show was that there was all kinds of stuff that the adults at the time really got, but sailed over the kids' heads. Instead of doing that with this movie, they went for the lowest common factor in comedy and bombed with it. I also think that Twitter, with the instant analysis that it can provide from everyone, might have played a huge role the word-of-mouth of this product. It should be interesting to see the fallout.

Didn't Land of the Lost have enough yelling for everyone?

Kim Hollis: Land of the Lost starred Will Ferrell, while The Hangover starred that guy from Alias and Kitchen Confidential. Does this prove once and for all that with comedies, it's about how funny the trailer looks rather than who stars?

Josh Spiegel: I'm not sure we can pin down the success of one comedy over the other to one definable characteristic. For one thing, the ads for The Hangover were diverse enough, moreso than those for Land of the Lost. The former had ads showing many different gags, not just the same four or five one-liners, as I felt was going on for the latter film. Will Ferrell hasn't had the most perfect career at the box office, but he is, more often than not, good for about $100 million when he stars in a movie. As long, that is, as he stays away from movies based on TV shows. I think that this may be more of a statement that audiences don't always need spectacle to be satisfied; obviously, humor plays a major role, but one of these movies wasn't excessively CG-driven, and that may have helped, too.

Continued:       1       2       3       4