Will Ferrell teams up with City of Angels director Brad Silberling for this summer blockbuster comedy Land of the Lost which serves as a parody for the 1974 TV series of the same name. Ferrell plays a brilliant palaeontologist named Rick Marshal whose unconventional theories regarding time travel have been laughed at by his peers and have seemingly wasted millions of public funds to test.
Years after being ostracized by the Science Department, Marshall meets Holly Cantrell played by the beautiful Anna Friel (Goal) who convinces him to complete his time travelling machine by showing Marshall a fossilised imprint of his own lighter. After completing his machine the two of them along with a helpless redneck tour guide named Will Stanton (Danny McBride) travel to an alternate universe complete with dinosaurs, green scaled lizard people, semi-civilized monkeys and a ridiculous plotline. This film should clearly come with a warning reading ‘harmful to intellects of all proportions.’
Ferrell is his usual quirky self, portraying Dr. Marshal as a brilliant mind at times and a complete moron at others. However, throughout the film it is of no doubt that Ferrell is more comfortable and believable when he portrays the unintelligent side of the character while you’re never quite sure if he’s trying to act seriously or not.
Ferrell also seems to like portraying characters associated with being at the top of their respective fields whether it be the best ice skater, the best Nascar driver or the best news reporter which by now has gotten a tad old.
This certainly has shown with Land of the Lost with the film grossing just over half its cost at the box office. Anna Friel and Danny McBride played a pretty unimportant role in the film regardless of their time on screen. In fact the entire film was a little difficult to fathom just for the fact that the story was so disjointed and clunky.
The humour was a little unrelated to the plot while its funny moments were often marred by jokes gone completely stale as you’re bound to get in almost every Will Ferrell film out there. |
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