Jurassic Lark
"Land of the Lost" the movie is like "Starsky & Hutch" the movie, a parody of a 70s TV show, but where as I had grown up watching "Starsky & Hutch" and so could spot the in-jokes I have never seen an episode of "Land of the Lost". In some ways that is probably a good thing because rather than having cherished memories destroyed by the parody what I got felt more like a parody of the whole fabulous adventure genre of movies where we enter a land of dinosaurs, strange creatures and over sized objects. And approached as such "Land of the Lost" sort of works with some fun gags about being chased by a dinosaur.
What is also interesting is I'm admittedly not a fan of the Will Ferrell brand of comedy yet because "Land of the Lost" is less about his brand of humour and more about generic parodying it is sort of enjoyable. In fairness I am sure fans of Will Ferrell will be disappointed because the humour and character are generic with very little which is typical Ferrell about it but for me it made it more enjoyable.
The upshot of all this is that whilst "Land of the Lost" delivers a storyline which sees Dr. Rick Marshall, Holly Cantrell and Will Stanton ending up going through a time warp to another universe the focus of the movie is not on the story. And to be honest it is a good thing because the storyline which sees the trio encountering strange creatures, escaping a grumpy T-Rex and dealing with a lizard like dictator is a weak lot of nonsense.
So the focus is on the humour and the parodying of the old show/ fabulous adventure genre and this is where it is reasonably amusing. Okay so there is a lot of stupidity from Holly being able to speak an old primate language but also enjoyable gags such as Rick and Will end up getting stone on narcotic fruit or dealing with the T-Rex who is insulted by Rick saying he has a brain the size of a walnut. It is very generic with as I mentioned very little which is typical of Ferrell's style of comedy but it means it is less about what Ferrell does and just about having fun with the old genre.
What this all boils down to is that whilst "Land of the Lost" is a parody of an old TV show it actually plays out like a parody of an old movie genre as we have fun in a land of dinosaurs and lizard creatures. There will be those who dislike it be it because it spoils their memories of a much loved series or because it is a vanilla performance from Will Ferrell, but for me the almost generic humour makes it easier to watch and a bit of simple fun to watch once and forget about.
