The Land That Time Forgot

"The Land That Time Forgot", 2009, a new movie. I liked the sound of the title and the fact that it only came out this year made me anxious for an epic story. I didn't know what to expect else that it would be a adventure film. But oh my, what was I disappointed. At the moment that I'm writing this I'm still watching the movie, for about 25 minutes now. After the first 5 minutes I already saw the most horrible, forced acting I'd ever see. There is no suspense, no build-up to the plot. You're just thrown in between crappy plastic dinosaurs.

This movie could've been great, it could've been the modern Jurassic Park if it weren't for a crappy script, even crappier acting and éven worse effects. And looking above my comment you'd see I'm not the only one who thinks this.

So to sum it up, we have horrible acting, effects, dialogues and script. But there are two, no three things I can be positive about in this film; 1 - The camera quality is well done This means the quality of the screens, I do not mention the camera work like composition and capturing, those are as lame and uninspiring as can be.

2 - The sound is nicely done Though the music is not very memorable, the sound effects of the dinosaurs etcetera are very well done. Really massive.. Too bad they come out of plastic children-toys dinosaurs..

3 - The movie ends sometime, and I will never-ever have to watch it again! Woohoo!

I flicked to the SyFy channel near the start of the movie and instantly judged this to be a cliched, awful CGI, straight-to-video B-movie, and while it is these things, it is also surprisingly watcheable.

After marooning on a desert island, the cast find they are not the first to be marooned there, in addition there are also dinosaurs, well it is the bermuda triangle.

The CGI is very outdated and you have to force yourself to believe it for it to work. The female and male roles are very cliched with women being supportive and men being action-oriented, they are generally ridiculously brazen and immune to post-dino PTSD. Having said that couples are given more than a few moments of embracing and it definitely seems that no-one is an island on this island. These heroes are human.

I was surprised to find themes of brain over brawn, with solutions to predicaments typically having a plan created, and with the final plan being thought up out of geeky scientific knowledge. I was also surprised at the level of working together and the lack of animosity, especially when the nazis are encountered, as it turns out to be more like that Christmas football game in no-man's land than trench-warfare. There is some skullduggery, but overall the theme is of helping each other, and teamwork!

The movie ending is fairly warm-hearted and positive.

This movie fails on almost every possible level:

Bad acting: check.

Poor direction: check.

Hackneyed script: check.

Painfully bad CG: check.

Odd pacing: check.

Timothy Bottoms looking embarrassed and wondering when he can go home and start drinking: check.

Run screaming, tripping and flailing away from this sad attempt at a movie.

I really wanted to like this movie as I have always liked C. Thomas Howell but unfortunately I can't say that I liked it. I can say that I watched it, but that's about it.

I was able to sit through it and that may be the best that Howell can hope for. The dialog was a bit unimportant and even somewhat silly at times. The whole thing seemed like a compromise - which I am sure to some degree (as with anything under budget constraints) it was.

There was no effort exhausted in building characters that you could care about or for that matter knew anything about. When someone got killed you just did not care - at all.

The more fascinating and cerebral aspects of this story were completely glossed over or avoided altogether; although I did find it interesting that there was a brief discussion on the details of refining petroleum. which I had expected would be ignored (okay in movies I guess).

Overall, it barely held my attention and came off as another lame Sci-Fi channel, low budget, bad CG feature.

Don't get me wrong, there were some things to like, but I think in this case, Howell probably had his hands tied as far as time/money are concerned and more money/time could have been invested in script, effects and filming.

I just watched it, absolutely awful.

This movie had terrible acting, dumb situations, and just... well....

Hardly any action, 1 boring dinosaur used twice, lol, well, other than 2 dead ones and a quickie underwater one, and 1 flying pterodactyl.

C. Thomas Howell and Bottoms acting were just bad.

They should be ashamed of themselves for not putting in more dinosaurs and cool stuff. I saw more action in the 1970's TV show land of the lost.

Watch the old 1960's version, way better.

Watch this version only if free and every other channel has infomercials on.