Screen Rant » land of the lost

Parental Warning: Land Of The Lost Is NOT Kid-Friendly

Vic Holtreman — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:05:22 +0000

Right off the bat I’ll say I know I’ll take some heat for this article because I haven’t seen Land of the Lost myself, and no doubt lots of young adult non-parents will be rolling their eyes over the point of this article. However being a parent myself, I thought this was most definitely worth bringing up.

Just as “regular” people use movie reviews to decide whether to see a movie or not, I’ve been looking at reviews about this film – and based on them I’m writing up this warning for parents who may be planning on taking their young children to see this.

You may remember Land of the Lost as a cheesy, innocuous Saturday morning TV show from your youth – so when the film was announced, I (and you may have) figured it would run along the same lines. Will Ferrell is in it? Maybe he’ll return to more of the sort of role he played in the wonderful film Elf.

You know, goofy dialog, cheesy adventure, humor aimed at the kids.

That is NOT what’s in this film.

Frankly, this didn’t interest me at all – the last film I really liked Ferrell in was the aforementioned Elf. And frankly, the advertising matched my expectations described above. However this looks like yet another case of misleading movie advertising, far worse than what we talk about here. Universal is pitching this as the sort of film described above – no biggie, right?

Well my first “huh?” moment came when I learned yesterday that Land of the Lost was not rated PG, but PG-13. PG-13? Really? Why in the heck would this movie need to be anything above a PG?

Keep in mind that these days “edgy” humor makes it into even PG-rated movies, so keep that in mind when you think about a PG-13 comedy.

Here are a few specifics for you to help you decide whether this is appropriate (I suppose you might consider these spoilers):

Language: Lots of uses of “damn,” “sh*t,” and even one F-bomb, an ethnic slur and an irreverant religious remark.
Very crude humor: One character that is defecated on from an animal and another that pours dinosaur urine all over himself.
Drug humor.
Drinking, smoking.
Violence including chases, comic but gross and grisly images.
Vulgar sexual references and jokes: Characters fondle one another and themselves. Other sexual gags include a mug depicting female anatomy, crude names for sexual activity and body parts, two men trying to kiss, wet t-shirt jokes, a low cut tank top, a male enhancement drug, topless females with carefully concealed bosoms.

Now before you go all “you’re a prude” on me, I loved The Hangover, an R-rated comedy that opened this weekend. But this movie is being marketed as a kid-friendly film to parents and kids on channels like Nickelodeon.

What kind of rocket scientist greenlights a project like this? Seriously. And did Sid & Marty Krofft really sign off on this? Maybe next we can have an HR Pufnstuf film that is all about a psychedelic drug trip with maybe a date rape and a murder thrown in for kicks (yes, I exagerrate – a little).

So while Land of the Lost may be funny on a certain level (which I seriously doubt, anyway), if you’re a Will Ferrell fan you would be best served by getting a babysitter and leaving the younger kids at HOME for this one.

Source: KansasCity.com, Wired.com, ParentPreviews.com

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MTV Spoilers Footage: Transformers 2, Watchmen & More

Vic Holtreman — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 04:57:22 +0000

Tonight MTV aired a “Spoilers” show with new footage from Watchmen, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Harry Potter 6, Land of the Lost and a behind the scenes featurette from Star Trek. Out of the three, the only one that actually made me look forward to one of these a little more was (believe it or not) Land of the Lost.

We have the clips for you below.

You can judge for yourself, but to me the Harry Potter footage didn’t influence me either way – they just indicated that there will be both more humor and action in the next film. I was REALLY disappointed by the Star Trek segment because I could have sworn I’d been reading there would be new footage – but there wasn’t. Sure, a lot of behind the scenes stuff – but no new movie scenes that I could see.

Transformers 2? Yeah, whatever – LOTS of big action pieces and ginormous explosions. I’ll give this one an extra star when I review it if they just leave the retarded humor from the first one behind and tackle this one as a serious action flick.

The clip from Land of the Lost actually made me chuckle. That’s not saying a lot, but it’s more than the previous trailers/clips have gotten out of me.

What worried me the most was the Watchmen footage… it was a full scene from the film showing Nite Owl and Silk Spectre II going into a prison during a riot. I’ve started hearing some not so positive things about the film (from “regular” people, not fans of the graphic novel) and I saw some of what they’ve been talking about here.

Silk Spectre jumping out of the Owl Ship, landing on the roof in spike heels and doing a tuck and roll just looked… silly. And in the slow-mo fight scene in the corrider it didn’t look like she was hitting/kicking her adversaries with enough power to really knock them back the way she did. I don’t know… I could be overanalyzing it. Check out all of these for yourself and tell us what YOU think.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen behind the scenes

Land of the Lost clip

Harry Potter 6 behind the scenes

Star Trek behind the scenes

Watchmen prison break clip

Source: MTV Movies

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Which Movie Trailers Will Air During The Super Bowl?

Rob Keyes — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:51:06 +0000

We’ve all heard stories of the insane amounts of money it costs to run TV spots during the Super Bowl ($3 million for a 30 second spot this year) but it’s certainly not stopping several of the major studios from debuting their highly-anticipated trailers during this year’s broadcast from Tampa Bay.

The following snippet from a Variety article lists the confirmed trailers:

Confirmed for this year’s roster are high-profile titles like Paramount’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” “Star Trek” and “G.I. Joe“; Sony’s “Angels and Demons“; DreamWorks Animation’s “Monsters vs. Aliens“; and Universal’s “Land of the Lost” and its fourth installment in “The Fast and the Furious” franchise. Disney is also planning to use the game to raise the profile for Pixar’s next toon, “Up.”

As we expected a while ago, we will be getting the very first ever trailer for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen as well as G.I. Joe which we haven’t had any new information on in a very long time.

One trailer that has already generated quite a bit of hype is that of Monsters vs. Aliens which DreamWorks Animation is promoting through a full 90-second trailer and the distribution of 125 million pairs of 3D glasses as the trailer will be aired in 3D. This blows my mind and I’m happy that we’re getting some innovative marketing that will get the kids involved.

Some studios such as Warner Bros. (who have Terminator Salvation, Harry Potter 6 and Watchmen coming out) and Fox (who has Wolverine, Ice Age 3 and Night at the Museum 2 debuting this year) have not purchased any ad time however they could be holding out till last minute to get a reduced rate by NBC to fill its remaining open slots.

The Super Bowl is one of the most watched television events in the world and is probably the only broadcast where people actually look forward to the commercials – now us movie buffs have even more to get excited about this year!

Are you excited for the plethora of teasers header our way during the February 1st broadcast?

Source: Variety

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New Posters: Underworld, Fast & Furious, Land Of The Lost

Rob Keyes — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:02:58 +0000

Here we have a few new posters for your viewing pleasure, including the very firsts for Fast & Furious and Land of the Lost.

Land of the Lost is a comedy which follows a forest ranger and his two kids who mistakenly end up in the land of dinosaurs (and other creatures). It stars Will Ferrell, Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies) and Danny R. McBride (Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder).

I’m pretty big fan of Danny McBride now that I think of it. I think he was pretty hilarious in Pineapple Express and I like how he came out of nowhere two years ago and is now in a lot of the biggest comedies each year. I don’t know much about this movie but if the dinosaurs don’t look terrible, this should be a fun (and funny) flick – if you’re a Will Ferrel fan.

Next we have the first poster for Fast & Furious (Fast and the Furious 4). I wasn’t a big fan of the second or third installments but I did like how they tied together the Tokyo Drift movie with the originals by having Vin Diesel appear with a cameo at the end. This newest installment brings back all the characters from the first movie and from the teaser trailer released back in I pretty excited for this film.

Lastly, we have the third poster for Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. This one features my favorite, Lucian, and is in the same style as the last two posters which featured Viktor and Sonja.

Land of the Lost hits theaters June 5, 2009. Fast & Furious debuts April 3, 2009. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans comes out January 23, 2009.

Sources: IGN, MTV, Cinematical

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Unbelievable… $100 Million For A Land Of The Lost Movie

Vic Holtreman — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 22:37:16 +0000

The bottom of the barrel for unoriginal movie ideas… could this be it?

Universal Studios is committing $100 MILLION to a comedy based on the old, cheesy Sid & Marty Krofft Saturday morning kid’s show Land of the Lost.

Land of the freaking Lost.

I’m just about speechless. Seriously, what’s left? How much lower can they go for source material for movies? No disrespect to the Kroffts intended, I enjoyed those cheesy Saturday morning shows when I was nine years old. But to base a movie on that show? A hundred million dollars? And turn it into a Will Ferrell comedy? Maybe I should write a spec script for a $100MM Gumby movie (I’d say H.R. Pufnstuf, but I have a feeling that’s already in the works somewhere).

Somebody please tell me this is a prank of some sort. It’s ok, I’ll wait.
.
.
.
.

No, huh?

Well thanks to AICN, here’s a little YouTube video showing the opening for that TV show during it’s first season:

C’mon Hollywood, give me a job. Put me in place of the guy who watched that and thought it would be a great idea to turn that into an expensive Will Ferrell comedy. You’ll thank me in the end.

You can head over to Ain’t It Cool for more information on the project because I don’t have it in me to write about this in any more detail…

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Potentially good TV show remake: Land of the Lost

Brian Rentschler — Tue, 26 Apr 2005 19:16:41 +0000

Here’s some potentially good news. According to E! Online, Will Ferrell has signed up to play Rick Marshall in a film version of Land of the Lost. For those who aren’t familiar with the Sid and Marty Krofft creation, Rick Marshall and his two children are on a rafting trip when they are somehow transported to another world. They have to deal with dinosaurs, Sleestaks, Chaka and, of course, each other. It was a very silly, very low-budget show that didn’t take itself too seriously, which is why I think casting Will Ferrell in it would be a great idea. Hopefully the writers and producers will try to stay at least somewhat true to the original story instead of going off on a tangent, like the Bewitched crew did.

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