

Lost in Space (PG-13) * (out of ****)

Back in February at the monthly Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction
Convention, New Line Cinema put on a lavish presentation for its big-screen
update of the cult 1960s sci-fi TV show Lost in Space, complete with
in-person appearances by cast members Mimi Rogers, Matt LeBlanc, Lacey
Chabert, Jack Johnson, and even Gary Oldman.  That should have set off my
warning alarms--the last time such an extravagant film presentation took
place at the convention was nearly five years ago, when none other than
Arnold Schwarzenegger made an in-person cameo to peddle... Last Action
Hero.  But no, like millions of others, I bought into the hype and "got
Lost."  If only I had gotten lost--literally--on the way to theatre and
spared myself the tedium of this sloppily slapped-together blockbuster
wannabe.

You may find yourself wondering if director Stephen Hopkins and
screenwriter Akiva Goldsman were lost themselves when they made the film.
At the convention, Goldsman claimed to be a rabid fan of the original
television series, and if that really is the case, I'd hate to see what he
does with concepts he only has mild interest in.  To say that his script
lacks narrative cohesion is to imply that there is a narrative to begin
with--which there most certainly is not.  After the setup, in which the
Robinson family--father John (William Hurt, looking and sounding as spaced
out as he does in interviews), mother Maureen (Rogers, wasted), daughters
Judy (Heather Graham, ditto) and Penny (a heavily made-up Chabert, looking
like a junior version of Neve Campbell in Wild Things), and son Will (young
newcomer Johnson, making the best of it)--and pilot Don West (LeBlanc,
doing a bad Han Solo impression) find themselves lost in space after their
ship is sabotaged by evil stowaway Dr. Smith (a watered-down but
still-lively Oldman, cashing a paycheck and loving every minute), the
script's "stream" of events becomes so fragmented and random that it seems
to be made up as it goes along--and Hopkins does little to make what does
go on the slightest bit interesting.  They encounter another ship.  They
board it.  Alien spiders attack them.  They return to their ship.  The
other one explodes.  They land on a deserted planet.  And so on.  An
attempt at a plot involving time travel occurs in the third act, but
Goldsman doesn't seem to understand the rules that come with using such a
story device; when one character's past self dies, the future incarnation
inexplicably lives on.

The look and effects should be Lost in Space's ace-in-the-hole, but
Hopkins even manages to botch that.  For a big-budget film, the visual
effects are incredibly shoddy.  In one composite background shot, I could
see the blue outline around Oldman; the various digital effects for the
space battle scenes look like... digital effects.  But nothing in those
shots is as jaw-droppingly unconvincing as Blawp, a monkey-like space
creature that becomes Penny's pet.  Entirely computer-generated and every
inch showing it, Blawp looks like it was lifted directly from a Sony
PlayStation game.  Apparently Hopkins thought the same and tried
desperately to hide it; how else can one explain the graininess of Blawp's
composite shots with the human actors?  But in doing so, the seams are that
much more obvious.  You have to be severely visually impaired to not be
distracted when a grainy shot of Penny and Blawp is immediately followed by
a crystal-clear solo reaction shot of Judy.

New Line is hoping Lost in Space will become a big franchise much like the
long-running Star Trek cash cow at Paramount.  I don't think so.  In a few
years, the Lost in Space movie will likely live on not as a series but as
the obscure answer to a trivia question:  What film ended Titanic's 15-week
reign at the top of the weekend box office?

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Michael Dequina
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