Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998)

From: [email-masked] (p-m agapow)
Date: 9 May 1998 16:38:50 GMT

# [film] "Lost In Space"
A Postview, copyright p-m agapow 1998

That horribly smarmy Robinson family get (woah!) lost amid a veneer 
of plot, many special effects and minimal logic.  Surprisingly enough, 
it's all quite fun.

In its never-ending search to drag more people to the movies, 
Hollywood has resurrected yet another old TV series for the nostalgia 
value.  (I, for one, have zero fond memories of that rather dreadful 
series.  Go and look at a few episodes sometime - it's singularly 
awful.)  Wrapped up in muchos SFX, bankable stars and few surprises, 
one shouldn't hold much hope.  But as cynical as the whole exercise 
is, "Lost in Space" is rather entertaining.  It's mind-candy to be 
sure, but inoffensive mind-candy.

In some ways, the movie is quite faithful to the premise of the old 
series.  In a future where the Earth is on the edge of ecological 
collapse and the technology for buttons has been lost, Professors 
Robinson (Hurt) and Robinson (Rogers) are taking a ship to a nearby 
star.  There they will build a hypergate-type thingie to allow Earth 
people to pour through and despoil another planet.  But the evil 
Sedition (evil largely for not being the Robinsons) wants to get there 
first and sics the rabid Dr Smith (Oldman) onto them.  The Professors 
Robinson, their nuclear family and Smith don their many velcro'd and 
zippered uniforms and then get "lost in space".

The plot is garbage on most scientific and even logical levels.  
Given the profligate way the Robinsons live, I'm not surprised that 
the Earth is running out of resources.  All that pollution seems to 
effect their brains, because they later forget that planets exert 
gravity.  (It's amazing what the user manuals to spacecraft don't 
mention.)  In many cringeworthy scenes, Dad Robinson is made to be 
ashamed that he spent too much time saving the Earth, and too little 
supervising young Will's crosstime experiments.

Most bizarre of all, they let the murderous Dr Smith loose on their 
ship.  Now you know and I know and any sane person would know that if 
Gary Oldman stows away on your spaceship [presidential jet / apartment 
building / etc.], it is only a matter of time before he goes spastic 
with large quantities of automatic weapons and kills everyone.  
(Warning: should you ever be in this situation and Gary appears to be 
quiescent as he takes large quantities of drugs - this is no reason to 
relax.  The drug-taking Gary is just a larval stage, and soon the 
ur-Oldman will emerge, go spastic with large quantities of automatic 
weapons and kill everyone.  Do not let your guard down.  Similar 
warnings are issued for John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi and Christopher 
Walken.)

But as said above, "Lost In Space" charms despite or perhaps because 
of its cliches.  Dr Smith chews much scenery and snarls out cutting 
one-liners.  (At first the filmmakers keep him relatively under 
control, but by the end of the picture just stand back shouting, "Look 
out, he's gonna blow!".)  Matt LeBlanc, who plays a dumb, 
over-sexed lug on "Friends", here plays pilot Don West as a dumb, 
over-sexed lug.  As a consequence, he is involved in by-the-numbers 
sexual tension with the eldest Robinson daughter and some nice space 
fight scenes (in very cute fighters adapted to 3D combat).  Penny 
Robinson makes an entertaining, angst-ridden teenager who keeps a very 
funny half confessional / half fantasy video diary.  Will pals around 
amusingly with the robot.  William Hurt - who has build an acting 
career of looking vaguely disconcerted by everything - be it 
castration, devolution into primordial energy or imprisonment in a 
Latin American jail - looks appropriately agonised by every little 
decision.  Only Judy and Professor Mom Robinson come across as a 
little dull, although they are at least competent, a thankful point of 
divergence with the original.  Slap in some glossy SFX, big 
explosions, a groovy set of end credits and you get nicely entertained 
for your 10 bucks.  At times the movie does slow down, chiefly where they 
insist on pursuing the plot or blabbering about Big Issues and the 
Importance of Family, but these occasions are mercifully brief.

Do we need another brash, big and meaningless picture? Maybe not. But 
in a balanced diet of entertainment and edification, "Lost in Space" 
makes a worthy entry on the entertainment side. [***] and lemonade on 
the Sid and Nancy scale.

"Lost In Space"
Released 1998.
Directed by Stephen Hopkins.
Starring William Hurt, Gary Oldman, Heather Graham, Mimi Rogers, Matt
	LeBlanc, Lacey Chabert, Jack Johnson.
	
--
paul-michael agapow ([email-masked]), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse
"There is no adventure, there is no romance, there is only trouble and desire."