FIY, i didn’t know this movie’s history beforehand, i figured we could use a mainstream released feature with actors people might have actually have seen before, you know, in theathers and all, it wasn’t an obscure product from a country that no longer exists and it was “2YK survivor”.
So i just slotted into the list, only to later find out i basically enlisted “comedy Hitler” for this Dino Dicember, as this thing was widely hated back in 2009, with the deadly combo of being both a box office bomb and receiving overwhelming amounts of negative reviews from the press.
And also won 7 Razzies, which – as said before – i don’t really acknowledge, but by all accounts it had everything going against it, as it was regarded as an awful, awful sketch comedy, and made people extra salty because it was technically one of those “parody movie adaptations/remakes” of an older, beloved TV series, in this case Sid and Marty Krofft’s Land Of The Lost from 1974.
Which i never saw since i’m technically a Millennial and whatnot.
Regardless, the plot concerns a ruined paleontologist who gets hired to continue his research on the weird theories he championed (“quantum paleontology”) and discovers a weird world where past, present and future are mixed together, a parallel world where he – alomgside a gift shop owner and Chaka, an Australopithecus ally he finds in the weird world/dimension – has battle hostile plantlife, dinosaurs and aliens bent on world domination, on the backdrop of fallen,time ridden and sand-covered ruins of western civilization.
Okay, let’s start with the foreshadowing list of stuff that i don’t hate about the movie…. or so i would say, but even the positives feel kinda bitter, even though the movie isn’t really at fault in this regard.
After all, this is – no questions about it – the more expensive and lavishly produced movie we featured in this coeur of “12 Days Of Dino Dicember”, one of the bigger and full on professional productions overall if we consider the Dino Dicember ensemble of reviews as a whole.
It looks really good, the effects are great, the dinosaurs look good, i like the colorful sets and the kitschy looking “quantumanic world”, but…. then the monkey paw curls another finger (even if you didn’t ask shit) and you have to confront the fact Land Of The Lost (or Land Of The Lost 2009, if we’re going by that old unofficial naming convention) it’s just plain unfunny, devoid of laughs, and of course has all the hallmarks of a bad comedy, most notably the annoying, grating comic relief character that you’d wish would just fuck off forever into a pit of deadly slime.
Did i mention the sidekick-comic relief character it’s literally a “monkeyman”?
Not that that Will Ferrell’s character of this pompous, anger-prone paleontologist fares any better, so much you side for the intelligent T-Rex that tries to eat him, and while i could try to eviscerate why it doesn’t work… it wouldn’t really change that the comedy movie just doesn’t work as a comedy.
But it doesn’t, and honestly it that kind of bad comedy where i’m far less angry than depressed at it, since i feel more pity for the movie and the cast, the effect artists having to craft this good looking creatures, just anyone having to work on a movie that feels so underwhelmingly pathetic, even more awkward since you could almost see it work in theory, but it never truly does in reality, as new scenes (the “urine camouflage plan” it’s a perfect example) will remind you why and concisely summarize how unfunny it is.
At the very best it’s kinda cute, but never truly “funny”.
It’s oddly watchable/easy to swallow despite how glacially non-entertaining it is, but aside from curiosity and film history, there’s not even that many weird single moments that are so weird to properly stand out and be worth cataloguing in “out-of-context” video compilations. Some screenshots, at best.
Though them killing an allosaurus with a nitrogen tank and catapult, resulting in the allosaurus freezing dead then exploding in a shower of dino meat chunks it’s a fun scene, as is the sight of Will Ferrell riding a T-Rex into battle against alien lizard people, but let’s be frank, i’m not too surprised that a movie like this has the creators of the original TV shown it’s based off apologize for it, even though they really shouldn’t have it since they were barely involved.
I do have some simpathy for the movie’s originally having to compete with the first Hangover movie, as they both released in the same weekend in the US markets back in 2009, but heck, when The Hangover is more deserving of success than your movie (a phrase that i wish i would never have to write down)…. there’s some insta-depression for you right there. Take it all in.
Just kinda sad and pathetic more than a rage inducing shitjob (though it’s very bad nonetheless), that’s the movie in a nutshell.
Wise Cafe (International) 