Based on a kid’s show from the early 1970s, which seems to have survived primarily in piles of ancient Betamax tapes, buried deep under the cobwebs, waiting to be unearthed by a stream of children over the years …

“Well, at least it’s not Barney. Geez, would anybody like to go play Donkey Kong?”

… which is about as much enthusiasm as the original merited. The remake does noticably better.

No, a Tyrannosaur probably wouldn’t act like the one in the movie, and in one case in particular physical plausibility gets pushed well past the breaking point, to such an extent that one talks about the movie having jumped the shark, but see this for what it is. It’s not hard science fiction, and it’s not meant to be.

Picture a group of people who saw the old show on TV, when it came around the first time, growing up, joking about this imaginatively conceived but poorly executed kids’ show that they once watched, so many years ago, gradually building up a story line out of the jokes. It looks surreal because the original it is making gentle, loving fun of was itself, inherently surreal, a story about an interdimensional sargasso sea where anybody or anything from any time or place could get tossed in, by accident. Why not push the surrealism and have fun with it?

Before anybody writes and asks “Joe, would you really want your nieces or nephews to see this” – no, of course not. But circa 2009, anybody still in childhood, when asked about the Land of the Lost, will probably give the same blank stare my dad gets from us when he mentions his old “Captain Midnight decoder ring”. They’re not the intended audience, as the PG-13 rating should make clear.

3 stars for this one – assuming that 3 is average; forgettable, but enjoyable enough to justify a full ticket price, maybe, if you saw the original. If not, you probably won’t get the joke, even if you’re open to doing so. (Originally posted to my Flixster Page, June 11, 2009)

Far fetched scenario in which a new ice age arrives in less time than it takes for a carton of milk to expire, in a formulaic disaster epic that is more veiled propaganda than entertainment, and barely veiled propaganda at that. The acting seems passable enough, but let’s face it – this isn’t Shakespeare. There isn’t a lot of subtle shading that goes into communicating the message “OHMYGOD I’M SO COLD” and the viewer is treated to a few hours of that.

As you watch this, you get the feeling that you’ve seen this movie before, a feeling so strong that it leaves you thinking that you can remember what’s going to happen next. “Oh, this is where the guy sacrifices himself to keep the others from endangering themselves trying to save him” – and he does. We know exactly what’s going to happen to all of these people before it does, and we don’t care, because they exist as archetypes, not as characters with developed personalities of their own. “Who am I? I’m the angry neglected child whose workaholic father is going to prove his love through a heroic rescue … have we met?”

Indeed we have, son, more times than we can count. Watch this one if you must, but try not to operate any heavy machinery afterward.

Rating: .01 of a star. (First posted to my Flixster account, May 28, 2008)

.. for it has a post to share. I’ll add more later. Those wishing to return to a ring one of my sites is on should see the code for their ring below. If not, or if they just love to see javascript in action, they should go to the ring return page for Spoiler Alert, where they should be able to find what they’re looking for, with little difficulty.

Code for the rings to which this blog and associated pages belong can be found below.

Joseph Dunphy Homepage Webring

Next | Prev | Next 5 | Prev 5 | Members | Random Site | Join the Ring, maybe