‘Land of the Lost’ Called “Filthy” and “Not for Kids”

Todd Phillips’ R-rated guy comedy The Hangover opens in theatres today against Will Ferrell’s TV-remake Land of the Lost. On the surface, it would seem easy to pigeonhole each of these films into their respective boxes and use those categories to determine your viewing habits. For Lost especially, this looks like your “slightly weird” but fairly straightforward TV retread. But, as Cinematical points out in their review Land of the Lost may not be the film we think it is.

In fact, Land of the Lost may be closer to Anchorman or Stranger than Fiction than Elf or Kicking & Screaming. Here’s the start of Cinematical’s review:

If Hunter S. Thompson were to write a story about his trip to a parallel, prehistoric dimension, then Land of the Lost might be the most accurate representation possible of its subsequent film adaptation.

Hunter S. Thompson? If that’s how the review starts, I guess we really do have to reset our expectations.

This update on the Sid and Marty Krofft television series from the 1970s is the strangest, filthiest summer movie I think I’ve ever seen – and it opens against one that features Mike Tyson, a tiger and Zach Galifianakis. But just as strangely, it’s also damn entertaining, although it’s hard to know whether you should or definitely shouldn’t be indoctrinated beforehand to its weirdness. Regardless, Land of the Lost offers a sobering alternative to the pre-packaged and otherwise conventional blockbuster fare offered by studios this summer, even if its charms would ultimately benefit from (if not require) chemical enhancement of some kind to be properly enjoyed.

I was planning on bringing my kids. But now I have to have “chemical enhancement” to enjoy the movie? And should I be feeding magic pills to my kids, too?

Most importantly, and in the interest of protecting young, corruptible minds, Land of the Lost is absolutely not for children. There’s at least one f-bomb, Rick and Will talk about Sleestaks “tapping that ass,” and there are multiple sequences in which our heroes are violently threatened by a Tyrannosaurus. I essentially got a Jurassic version of Anchorman, which suggests… if not maturity, necessarily, then at least humor that’s decidedly for grown-ups. 

Oh. Not for kids.

So, how do I react to this news?  I probably shouldn’t take the kids, which I guess is a negative for me as a father. I saw the clip where the characters are “tripping” on jungle juice, as well as the one where Ferrell pours urine all over himself. And those clips were awfully funny. So, perhaps this subversion may make the film more interesting to me not as a father but as grown-up. I guess we’ll see…

Will Ferrell in Land of the Lost

This entry was posted on Friday, June 5th, 2009 at 7:42 am and is filed under Danny McBride, Land of the Lost, Will Ferrell. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.