Review of Lost in Space (1998) by David G — 25 Aug 2010

Superficially this film is OK - costumes, sets, special effects... for the most part they're very good. Unfortunately in all the areas that matter - plot, characters, acting, action, drama - it can only be described as a disaster. The plot is a boring, incoherent mess (the time travel aspect had promise but is handled very poorly), the action is dull beyond belief and the characters are a joke - Matt LeBlanc's hotshot pilot (yes, we're expected to take him seriously), William Hurt's monotonous scientist, Lacey Chabert's whiny, snarky, emo bitch, Jack Johnson's annoying 10 year old know-it-all who builds robots and cracks the secret of time travel in his spare time (no, seriously, he does!) - they just suck! Only Gary Oldman (doing his familiar hammy villain routine), Mimi Rogers and Heather Graham manage to escape with their dignity mostly intact. Oh and there's an incredibly fake-looking (but mercifully little used) CGI alien monkey thing called Blarp (seriously? "Blarp"?), but who gives a fuck about that?

The film is based on a cheesy 60's TV show, which admittedly isn't exactly ideal if you're looking for quality, but that doesn't automatically doom it to failure, I mean it may have been facing an uphill battle right from the get go but look at the Star Trek franchise. That did pretty well for itself didn't it? The concept itself is sound ("Lost in Space"... it practically sells itself) and really there's no reason why it couldn't have been a cool little film instead of an utter waste.