‘Land of the Lost’ is simply lost

By CHRIS KRAPEK

Finally, a stoner movie for … kids?

“Land Of The Lost” has talking monkeys, crystal-seeking aliens, narcotic flowers and is lacking anything that will keep a kid entertained in an age of movies in the third dimension. There’s even a recurring Matt Lauer bit, a gag that will have even the biggest 10-year-old broadcast journalism aficionado rolling eyes.

Borrowing some elements from the ‘70s Saturday morning show, “Land Of The Lost” looks at egotist Dr. Rick Marshall (Will Ferrell) as he successfully finds a place where time and space meet, complete with dinosaurs, spaceships, carnivorous lizard-things; the whole shebang.

Ferrell sacrilegiously leaves his typical uber-male stench all over the project. He’s tamer, but it’s essentially Ron Burgundy part VIII. The major laughter comes from current cult-classic-in-the-making Danny McBride. After scene-stealing roles in “Tropic Thunder,” “Pineapple Express” and his HBO comedy “Eastbound And Down,” McBride makes out like a bandit with most of Ferrell’s thunder aside from one unfortunate incident with dino pee.

“Land Of The Lost” is marketed as something similar to “Night At The Museum,” however that’s a totally misguided representation. I really don’t think any kid will like this movie, nor sit still through quantum physics jargon. The humor is goofy, perhaps its funniest bit coming from an auto-tuned rendition of a Cher song, but it will certainly not satisfy youngsters wanting their first glimpse of a Ferrell film.

The direction, though, is going highly unnoticed. We are seriously transported to an un-CGI resembling world where past meets present.

It has its moments, but it seems Ferrell threw a dart, missed “Sigmund And The Sea Monsters” and “H.R. Pufnstuf” and somehow thought “Land Of The Lost” was a smart career move. It wasn’t.