From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:41:25 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: PBBP24A@prodigy.com (Edward Johnson-ott) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 29 Mar 1998 19:53:38 GMT Organization: Prodigy Services Company 1-800-PRODIGY Lines: 96 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <6fm8s2$b6t$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer28.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891201218 11485 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11743 Keywords: author=johnson-ott X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer28.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10873 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1821 Lost In Space (1998) William Hurt, Gary Oldman, Matt Le Blanc, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, Jack Johnson, Lacey Chabert. Directed by Stephen Hopkins. PG-13, 3 stars (out of 5 stars) Review by Ed Johnson-Ott, NUVO Newsweekly www.nuvo-online.com/film/ Archive reviews at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Edward+Johnson-ott Whenever Hollywood trots out its latest big budget film based on an old TV series, people invariably ask if it's as good as the original. In the case of "Lost In Space," the obvious answer is How could it not be? Irwin Allen's "Lost In Space," which ran from 1965 through '68, was quite possibly the lousiest show in the history of television. Nostalgic baby boomers remember it fondly as a camp classic. They are wrong. The film "Valley Of The Dolls" and the old "Batman" TV series were camp. "Lost In Space" was simply bargain basement kiddie dreck as its very worst. A sci- fi version of "The Swiss Family Robinson," the show was a painfully dull melange of wooden acting, Grade Z special effects, and costumes straight from an elementary school play. The only element of the show even remotely interesting was the bitchy relationship between the family's robot and the villainous Dr. Smith, played by Jonathan Harris as a grumpy, grandiose old queen. 30 years after the series died and went to rerun Hell, "Lost In Space" has been reborn as a feature film, with a budget in the neighborhood of $80 million. Who would have ever thought? Even more surprising is the fact that, for the most part, they finally got it right. This "Lost In Space" is a whiz bang, tongue-in-cheek space opera, entertaining and visually imaginative. Although the story lurches across more than a few rough spots, overall it's a pretty fun ride. The movie follows the basic premise of the TV series. Faced with looming ecological disaster, the United Global Space Force is looking for a new planet. Against his wishes, hotshot fly-boy Major Don West (Matt Le Blanc) is assigned to pilot the Jupiter 2, taking the Robinson family across the galaxy to set up a space gate that will allow instantaneous transportation throughout the stars. Enter Dr. Zachary Smith (Gary Oldman, ) a mercenary working for sedition interests, who sabotages the mission, but inadvertently ends up trapped on the ship with the Robinsons. Big splashy adventures follow, as the group deals with a robot gone berserk, intergalactic spiders, a space monkey, and an encounter with a time bubble, where they come face to face with future versions of themselves. William Hurt plays Professor Robinson much like his character in "Altered States"; both are chronically preoccupied scientists who care for their families, but don't take time to show it. Maureen Robinson (Mimi Rogers from "Austin Powers") tries to bridge the emotional gap between Dad and the kids; Will (Jack Johnson,) Penny (Lacey Chabert,) and Judy (Heather Graham from "Boogie Nights.") The cast is fine, except for "Party Of Five's" annoying young Lacey Chabert, who looks like a midget Neve Campbell and talks like Alvin the Chipmuck. Thankfully, Gary Oldman, in his umpteenth role as a villain, keeps his portrayal of Dr. Smith in check. He captures the spirit of Harris, spouting lines like "Farewell, my platinum plated pal. Give my regards to oblivion," without approaching the hamminess ozone of his predecessor. Matt Le Blanc from "Friends" is likable as Major West, the Jupiter 2's version of Han Solo. Watch for cameos from June Lockhart (as a holographic note from school) and Mark Goddard (Major West's superior officer) from the original series. Incidentally, Bill Mumy, the original Will Robinson, was inexplicably passed over for a part, while Jonathan Harris refused to appear ("I don't do bit parts," he sniffed.) Of course, "Lost In Space" is about special effects, not acting, and the results are mixed. The film boasts over 700 computer-generated visual effects, a new record, and many of them are knockouts. After some expansive shots of a futuristic city (not as good as "The Fifth Element," but still quite nifty,) we're treated with a dazzling launch sequence as the Jupiter 2 takes flight. Unfortunately, once the family hits space, the effects become more uneven. CGI close-ups of a cryogenic procedure look phony, as do some of the creature shots. Most irritating are scenes of the Blawp, a space monkey designed by the Jim Henson folks to be "user-friendly, from a merchandising point of view. " The CGI creature moves well enough (for a walking toy commercial,) but the effect is never convincingly integrated into the scenes, looking as if it was pasted onto the individual frames of film. For its first two thirds, "Lost In Space" moves along at a brisk pace, nicely mixing visuals and genre standbys, underscored by the "Afterschool Special" subplot about young Will seeking parental validation. Things get murkier in the final reel, when the time bubble enters the storyline and angst-ridden future versions of the cast chase the family around. Naturally, all is resolved in time to set things up for a sequel. Although undeniably cheesy, "Lost In Space" is done with high style and good humor. For cinematic junk food, it's tastier than you'd expect it to be. Notwithstanding that damned Blawp, of course. Get me a hunting rifle and I'd gladly mount its head on the wall, right next to my Ewok. Copyright 1998, Ed Johnson-Ott From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:41:30 1998 From: "Harvey S. Karten" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 1 Apr 1998 06:11:18 GMT Organization: None Lines: 118 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6fslq6$sp4$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer15.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891411078 29476 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11785 Keywords: author=karten X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer15.u.washington.edu Path: news.ifm.liu.se!genius.dat.hk-r.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10903 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1824 LOST IN SPACE Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. New Line Cinema Director: Stephen Hopkins Writer: Akiva Goldsman Cast: William Hurt, Gary Oldman, Heather Graham, Mimi Rogers, Matt LeBlanc, Lacey Chabert, Jack Johnson In his on-the-money essay in the April 6th New Yorker magazine, film critic David Denby writes, "New movies are amazingly impersonal--a rush of frenetic images that have little in common with, say, the heart-stopping dangers and last-minutes rescues in Griffith, the tumultuous waves of frenzy in Gance, the stately displays of massed power in Lean...A couple holding hands runs away from an explosion, or runs down a corridor as flames (or floods) chase after them. How many times have we seen those?" Mr. Denby--whose essay is entitled, "Mourning the Movies: Why don't people love the right movies anymore?"--might be expected to look with a jaundiced eye at Stephen Hopkins's sci-fi drama, "Lost in Space." Or would he? True enough, we've seen this sort of film-making before, packed to the hilt with all the special effects money can buy, the heroes outracing disaster from fire, floods, monsters, and evil human beings. It's all here. There's are two differences, however. One is that the technology in this New Line production is as dazzling as you'll find anywhere, Star Trek and Star Wars not excluded. The other is that despite the slimness of the story, you may just get caught up in the human drama of a family who have become truly lost--not simply marooned on a remote island or a snowy mountain peak with a chance of being rescued by the Coast Guard or an observant chopper, but astray in some alien galaxy beyond the help of any forces back on earth. Akiva Goldsman, who scripted the tale based on the 1960s TV series starring Jonathan Harris, sets the narrative sixty years into the future. The planet's technology is predictably able to transport people to regions far more remote than our own moon but, wonders of wonders, it's a world in which all countries have worked out their differences and live together in peace. The enemy now is not our fellow human beings but ourselves. We have savaged nature to such a degree that the planet has only about a decade to live before the air will be unfit to breathe. People will not be deserting the farms and rural areas for metropolitan areas as waves of immigrants have done for decades. Now there's a job that not even the Seven Santini Brothers could handle. Everyone will have to bolt from the earth to a planet which can sustain life. That new world is ten years away given the state of power in 2058, but through the miracle of wormhole technology, the trip can be made virtually instantaneously. The wormhole must have a gate both going and coming, without which you're lost. You can guess that the gate vanishes leaving the astronauts stranded in the great expanse. To give the story the human dimension needed to allow the audience to relate, writer Goldsman sends up a single family unit, the Robinsons, carrying with them all the baggage of the brood including a sassy teen, Penny (Lacey Chabert--who sounds like Donald Duck on a clear day); the wise-beyond-his years Will (Jack Johnson); an egghead professor, Johnson (William Hurt); his wife Maureen (Mimi Rogers); their cute physicist daughter Judy (Heather Graham); with Gary Oldman performing in the role of the (need we say) evil Dr. Zachary Smith. The handsome and egotistical Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc) is in the driver's seat, a guy who after serving fifty military missions resents being called up to take a family on what he calls a mere outing. That this family is the earth's last hope for survival seems lost on him: he's more interested in making passes at Judy, whose name he hopes to tattoo on his back to replace those of his former girlfriends whose identities have all been surgically removed from his body. Though we grow to care for this family unit, whose members we can identify with given their all-too-human traits, we may wind up thoroughly confused by most aspects of the story. Dr. Smith wants to sabotage the mission though it's not clear why, even though Gary Oldman, who inhabits this diabolic doctor well, announces his intentions and feelings in Shakespearean English. (Maybe that's why.) A huge robot makes an appearance now and then, more clearly announcing its intention: "Destroy the Robinson family." Why? Who knows--they seem nice enough. Spiders show their hostility, a friendly little E.T. leaps from the brush to become the family pet, and Will Robinson makes an appearance toward the end of the film, suddenly twenty years older thanks to a little time travel by the Robinsons, to whine about how his dad never showed him enough love. Director Hopkins finds enough time in this 128-minute film to evoke sentiment ("I love you very much"--John Robinson to his son Will); the slang of the year 2058 ("Hey professor, why don't you give the egghead a rest"--Major West to John Robinson--and also such futuristic argot as "Gimme a break" and "Tell me about it"); and politically correct calls for conservation. All of this, however, takes a back seat--way back--to the fx which, wonder or wonders, can be realized right now in 1998. A look at the massive numbers on the production crew will give you an idea of the importance of dazzling eye and ear: digital character animator, computer and video effects supervisor, computer graphics coordinator, computer and video effects assistant, gaffer, computer graphics designer, ad infinitum. Bill Hurt may have turned in a more three-dimensional role in his other special-effects movie, Ken Russell's 1980 blockbuster, "Altered States," but the technology which staggered the eye eighteen years ago seems laughably naive today. Expect to be lost in the dynamics of time travel, a space ship transporting itself through wormholes, fires, and the like, and even a James Bond-like galactic battle scene to set the tone. The mewl "Are we there yet?" becomes especially poignant when everyone justifiably wants nothing more than to go home. Rated PG-13. Running time: 128 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:41:34 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news.algonet.se!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Scott Renshaw Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 1 Apr 1998 06:11:26 GMT Organization: None Lines: 81 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6fslqe$sp8$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: Scott Renshaw NNTP-Posting-Host: homer15.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891411086 29480 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11786 Keywords: author=renshaw X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer15.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10906 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1825 LOST IN SPACE (1998) (New Line) Starring: Gary Oldman, William Hurt, Matt LeBlanc, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, Lacey Chabert, Jack Johnson. Screenplay: Akiva Goldsman. Producers: Akiva Goldsman, Stephen Hopkins and Mark W. Koch. Director: Stephen Hopkins. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (adult themes, violence, profanity) Running Time: 130 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw. Boy it seems like summer in the American movie business is starting earlier all the time, doesn't it? Time was you had to wait at least until Memorial Day for the first sighting of a big-budget blockbuster. Then TWISTER crept into mid-May a couple of years ago, followed by THE FIFTH ELEMENT's early May bow last year. Now here comes LOST IN SPACE, pulling out the big guns in April. Yep, summer is coming earlier all the time. And so is the holiday movie season for that matter. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the new STAR TREK movie not due until November? I understand that in principle LOST IN SPACE is based on another 1960s science-fiction series entirely, the one with Robby the Robot and a family named Robinson marooned in outer space. In the big screen version, set sixty years in the future, the Robinsons -- John (William Hurt), Maureen (Mimi Rogers), Judy (Heather Graham), Penny (Lacey Chabert) and Will (Jack Johnson) -- and their ace pilot Maj. Don West (Matt LeBlanc) end up light years from home when the evil Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman) sabotages their mission to colonize a distant planet. The premise is something straight out of the current TV "Trek" incarnation "Voyager," but that's not the only place that Akiva Goldsman's script borders on "Trek" parody. "Anomalies" and "space-time rifts" appear with some regularity; problems become something to be solved with a stream of techno-babble. Even the extra-terrestrial sets have the vaguely cheesy Early Styrofoam look of the original series. By the time Dr. Smith grumbles in one scene "I'm a doctor, not a space explorer," you may begin scanning the edges of the frame for Paramount lawyers scurrying onto the set with cease-and-desist orders. Then again, "Star Trek" never got itself bogged down in the sort of hand-wringing which passes for character development in LOST IN SPACE. The television series turned the Swiss Family Robinson into the Space Family Robinson; here, they're more like the Dysfunctional Family Robinson. When their spacecraft isn't being sucked into the sun or attacked by relentless alien arachnids, the Robinson children pout over the lack of attention paid to them by their work-obsessed father, while Ma Robinson wonders "why we're trying to save the planet when we can't save our own family." Survival, it seems, becomes a secondary concern to using the occasion for a big, forced group therapy session. Combine the family squabbles, the obligatory cameo by a member of the series cast (June Lockhart as Will's principal), a villainous Global Sedition movement which disappears after the first twenty minutes, pointless flirtations between LeBlanc and Graham and an even-more-pointless friendly alien monkey/chameleon/action figure-in-training character, and you've got one heck of a loud and busy story from Goldsman (BATMAN & ROBIN), the Crown Prince of Loud and Busy Stories. And one bitchin'-cool loud and busy story, at that. LOST IN SPACE may be silly and overwrought, but it sure looks great. Creepy creatures, spaceship dogfights, morphing, nifty costumes, well-crafted action sequences -- I can't remember the last time I spent so much time impressed by a film's bag of visual tricks. There's even a modicum of decent acting to season the spectacle, particularly from Oldman as the nasty villain and LeBlanc as the thick-but-decent military man. There may not be much to recommend LOST IN SPACE as quality film-making beyond its technical prowess, but that's probably more than enough to satisfy summer movie fans until summer actually arrives. Or to satisfy the "Star Trek" fans until Thanksgiving actually arrives. On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 LOST weekends: 6. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit Scott Renshaw's MoviePage http://www.inconnect.com/~renshaw/ *** Subscribe to receive new reviews directly by email! See the MoviePage for details, or reply to this message with subject line "Subscribe". -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:41:38 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: James Berardinelli Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 3 Apr 1998 06:06:47 GMT Organization: None Lines: 128 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6g1u9n$e97$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer01.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891583607 14631 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11808 Keywords: author=berardinelli X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer01.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10928 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1829 LOST IN SPACE A Film Review by James Berardinelli RATING: **1/2 OUT OF **** United States, 1998 U.S. Release Date: 4/3/98 (wide) Running Length: 2:10 MPAA Classification: PG (Mild profanity, mild cartoon violence) Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cast: Gary Oldman, William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Matt LeBlanc, Heather Graham, Lacey Chabert, Jack Johnson, Jared Harris Director: Stephen Hopkins Producers: Mark W. Koch, Stephen Hopkins, Akiva Goldsman, Carla Fry Screenplay: Akiva Goldsman Cinematography: Peter Levy Music: Bruce Broughton U.S. Distributor: New Line Cinema LOST IN SPACE is New Line Cinema's bid to enter the space franchise race. Undoubtedly impressed by the long-term, consistent profitability of Paramount's STAR TREK movies (the ninth of which will be released this year), New Line has decided to resurrect another late-'60s science fiction television enterprise, LOST IN SPACE. Admittedly, thirty years ago, there weren't many similarities between the two programs. STAR TREK was a relatively serious, socially-conscious series while LOST IN SPACE became infected with what I'll call the "BATMAN sickness," and, over the course of its four-year run, devolved from a semi-straight program into pure camp. Much of that silliness has been removed for this big-budget, big-screen effort. Fans of the original LOST IN SPACE will likely not be displeased by the direction this movie takes. In addition to retaining the basic premise of the series, all of the characters are back, as well – right down to the nameless robot (whose voice is provided by the same man who did the job in the TV program, Dick Tufeld). There are also cameos by four of the '60s cast – June Lockhart (who played Maureen Robinson), Mark Goddard (Don West), Angela Cartwright (Penny Robinson), and Marta Kristen (Judy Robinson). Despite all of these nods to the past, however, the special effects are strictly state-of-the-art. Unfortunately, there's not much to supplement all the eye-popping visuals. The story is unfocused and the character development is virtually nonexistent. One of the problems is that LOST IN SPACE uses more than 30 minutes setting up the plot, and it's not a particularly interesting half-hour. (If a strong box office response warrants future installments, at least we will have gotten over this tedious hurdle.) The remainder of the film is divided into two parts – the investigation of a seemingly- deserted space ship and the exploration of an inhospitable planet. All the while, the space traveling family Robinson are trying to find their way home while dealing with a dangerous stowaway. It's 2058, and Earth is a dying world. The Robinsons, John (William Hurt), Maureen (Mimi Rogers), Judy (Heather Graham), Penny (Lacey Chabert), and Will (Jack Johnson), along with their pilot, Don West (Matt LeBlanc), have boarded the space ship "Jupiter 2" on a colonization mission to the planet Alpha Prime. Thanks to a stowaway saboteur named Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman), things don't go as planned. 16 hours out of Earth orbit, disaster strikes the "Jupiter 2", and, to keep the ship from plunging into the Sun, West is forced to activate the hyperdrive, which saves the ship but throws it light-years across the galaxy into uncharted space. Seven people and one robot are lost, looking for the way back to Earth. The set design in LOST IN SPACE is impressive. The interior of the space ship is suitably futuristic-looking, while the Earth-based scenes, with their visually-stunning backdrops, recall last year's THE FIFTH ELEMENT. Most of the model sequences are equally flawless, but the computer-generated spider-like aliens have the same flaw exhibited by similar creatures in STARSHIP TROOPERS – they look fake. On the whole, however, LOST IN SPACE has a polished, high-budget appearance. Too bad some of the effects money wasn't spent on the script. LOST IN SPACE is infected with a meandering storyline and lifeless protagonists. Without a clear narrative drive, there doesn't seem to be much of a point to the whole endeavor. The desire to get home doesn't generate the level of urgency one might reasonably expect, and the movie ends up feeling like a few episodes of STAR TREK: VOYAGER strung together. There isn't a clear villain, either, since Dr. Smith is more of an anti-hero than anything else – his motivation is self-interest, not malice. In the TV series, Smith, as portrayed by Jonathan Harris, was the standout, and Oldman does a superb job re-inventing the character, bringing back many of Harris' mannerisms while leaving his own indelible mark. Smith becomes a fascinating blend of charisma and delicious nastiness. Beyond Oldman, however, the cast is disappointingly bland. As John and Maureen Robinson, William Hurt and Mimi Rogers fizzle. Heather Graham, who was wonderful as Rollergirl in BOOGIE NIGHTS, fails to do anything interesting with Judy. FRIENDS' Matt LeBlanc displays no range whatsoever. Only the two children, helium-voiced Lacey Chabert and cool-as-a-cucumber Jack Johnson, show signs of having a pulse. Chabert especially shows spunk, but she has the least screen time of the major players. Incidentally, it could be argued that it wouldn't have mattered if everyone in the cast had been in peak acting form, since the script delivers the kind of two-dimensional characters involved in shallow relationships that even top-notch performances couldn't do much with. LOST IN SPACE features a few action sequences that generate adrenaline jolts, but this is not an edge-of-the-seat motion picture. And, to satisfy the kiddy crowd, there's the likable robot and a friendly (read "cute") alien called Blawp, which is the product of Jim Henson's Creature Shop and seems designed to appeal to younger audience members. This may add to the film's attraction in some quarters, but not as far as I'm concerned. I wanted a little more energy and a story that went somewhere. As a result, while I can offer a mild endorsement of LOST IN SPACE as a comic book come to life, it's too weak a film for me to stamp with an unqualified recommendation. Copyright 1998 James Berardinelli - James Berardinelli e-mail: berardin@mail.cybernex.net Now with more than 1400 reviews... The ReelViews web site: http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/ "My belief is that no movie, nothing in life, leaves people neutral. You either leave them up or you leave them down." -- David Puttnam From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:41:42 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: sfrevu@aol.com (Ernest Lilley) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.movies.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 3 Apr 1998 06:19:06 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Lines: 95 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6g1v0q$f35$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer05.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891584346 15461 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11810 Keywords: author=lilley X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer05.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1827 rec.arts.movies.reviews:10925 Lost in Space review by Ernest Lilley Cast: William Hurt (John Robinson), Mimi Rodgers (Maureen Robinson), Gary Oldman (Dr. Smith), Matt LeBlanc (Don West), Heather Graham (Judy), Jack Johnson (Will), Lacey Chabert (Penny), Dick Tufeld (Robot's Voice) Director: Stephen Hopkins Screenwriter/Producer: Akiva Goldsman LOST IN SPACE is a blast! Of all the TV series remakes I've seen, LIS plays the deftest hand, updating the overly campy original series with a darker cast while incorporating style and substance from the original. Gone is the international tension that sparked sabotage of the Space Family Robinson's colonizing mission to Alpha Centuri, replaced by the Sedition, a movement to thwart the unified Earth government's project to establish a hypergate to Alpha Prime - a planet probes have identified as capable of supporting Terran life. With the Eco-systems of Earth on the ropes, Scientist John Robinson is willing to travel to Alpha Prime by normal space to establish the crucial "other link" and make two-way hypertravel possible. Driven by his work, and haunted by the specter of his own father's parenting failure, he insists on taking his family. It's a twisted idea, as the self proclaimed "Space Captive" Penny explains in her personal video diary, but he means well by it. Dr. Smith does not mean well by anyone, and in the pay of the Sedition sabotages the mission in classic style. His reward for avarice is an all expense paid trip to an unknown region of the galaxy with the Robinsons. The elements of the original series are lovingly encoded into a very fresh work by writer/producer Akiva Goldsman, who deserves applause for mixing the old and new without making them look borrowed…and us blue. The tributes are many, from the appearance of five of the original LIS cast as support characters in the pre-launch segment, to morphing of ship and robot from old to new and the use of the familiar robot voice. Mark Goddard, the original Major West, belies his retirement from acting in his short but nicely realized role as "The General", giving orders to the upstart Major West. Throughout the film you will see shots coinciding with actual sequences from the series as your mind clicks into a place 30+ years ago, assuming you were around then. It will be curious to see the reverse effect on younger audiences if they ever see the series pilot, suddenly seeing the connections in the film. While the old is well served, so is the new. The original cast cameos work to hand off their roles to the next generations, especially the ones by June Lockhart (the Principal) and Mark Goddard. The props echo or incorporate their predecessors, but they do it with cutting edge style. Even the storyline makes sense. It is excellent SF, and surprisingly consistent for a mass appeal Sci-Fi project. LOST IN SPACE takes advantage of the audience's SF education in the intervening years. Goldsman has put together a complex project that would have been overkill not long ago but now deserves the accolade action packed instead. The new cast does a super job of balancing old and new. Gary Oldman's Dr. Smith is a tribute to Jonathan Harris's performance, with just the right amount of the old ("oh, the pain…the pain…") and the new. Oldman's Dr. Smith happily acknowledges his evil - it's a philosophical choice, he explains. I liked the more competent villain he portrays as much as I liked Mimi Rogers as Maureen Robinson. In fact, I've always liked Mimi Rogers, and I think it's good to have a Maureen Robinson with a Playboy pictorial (Mar '93) in addition to her movie credits. Though she doesn't show an excess of skin, Mimi shows plenty of steel in the new role. William Hurt's John Robinson gets a 90's update too. Screenwriter Goldsman used the part to recall the splintered families that surrounded us as we watched the original, and to promise that among the wonders of future parents working to save their families will be the most precious. Hurt's character does beat us over the head with his awareness of the effect of his work obsession though, as we all got it the first time. If you want a benchmark for how far CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) has come, compare the opening "bubble fighter" space combat sequence to the Babylon 5 Star Fury shots. The only things not CGI are Matt LeBlanc and the other pilots. Crisp and breathtaking. The B5 work has nothing to be ashamed of, but it's nowhere near the LIS sequence. Now go back and check the Star Fighter combat scenes from THE LAST STARFIGHTER. Ouch. And I thought they were so sharp when they came out in 1984. Or even more telling, take a look again at the Millennium Falcon jumping to hyperspace and then compare it to the Jupiter 2's fiery transit. Wow. LOST IN SPACE reunites us with an important piece of our Sci-Fi past . For those of us who watched, glued to the screen as Irwin Allen's first family in space launched from our black and white screens back in 1965, this timewarp serves a kindness no school reunion ever will, showing us our memories as we'd like to remember them - improved by the passing years. Incredibly, it even knows when to get off the stage, leaving us brimming with hope and wondering about what comes next. Thank you, LOST IN SPACE. Godspeed, Space Family Robinson. Robot, keep an eye out for them, they're our family too. Subscribe now by Emailing SFRevu@aol.com with any of the following in the ~subject: 1) "Notify Me" to get notices when the WebPage changes 2) "Email Subscription" to have the text version sent to you vial Email. SFRevu brings Science Fiction reviews and interviews to the web each month. Pass the word! Help SFRevu grow by forwarding copies to friends, we can use all the help we can get. SFRevu's contents may be reused with the following conditions: 1) credit SFRevu@aol.com and give our URL: http://members.aol.com/sfrevu 2) contents may not be changed without the permission of the Editor >> >> From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:29 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!206.229.87.25!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: PBBP24A@prodigy.com (Edward Johnson-ott) ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 29 Mar 1998 19:42:14 GMT Organization: Prodigy Services Company 1-800-PRODIGY ~Lines: 96 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <6fm86m$ani$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer24.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891200534 10994 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11729 Keywords: author=johnson-ott X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer24.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10970 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1831 Lost In Space (1998) William Hurt, Gary Oldman, Matt Le Blanc, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, Jack Johnson, Lacey Chabert. Directed by Stephen Hopkins. PG-13, 3 stars (out of 5 stars) Review by Ed Johnson-Ott, NUVO Newsweekly www.nuvo-online.com/film/ Archive reviews at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Edward+Johnson-ott Whenever Hollywood trots out its latest big budget film based on an old TV series, people invariably ask if it's as good as the original. In the case of "Lost In Space," the obvious answer is How could it not be? Irwin Allen's "Lost In Space," which ran from 1965 through '68, was quite possibly the lousiest show in the history of television. Nostalgic baby boomers remember it fondly as a camp classic. They are wrong. The film "Valley Of The Dolls" and the old "Batman" TV series were camp. "Lost In Space" was simply bargain basement kiddie dreck as its very worst. A sci- fi version of "The Swiss Family Robinson," the show was a painfully dull melange of wooden acting, Grade Z special effects, and costumes straight from an elementary school play. The only element of the show even remotely interesting was the bitchy relationship between the family's robot and the villainous Dr. Smith, played by Jonathan Harris as a grumpy, grandiose old queen. 30 years after the series died and went to rerun Hell, "Lost In Space" has been reborn as a feature film, with a budget in the neighborhood of $80 million. Who would have ever thought? Even more surprising is the fact that, for the most part, they finally got it right. This "Lost In Space" is a whiz bang, tongue-in-cheek space opera, entertaining and visually imaginative. Although the story lurches across more than a few rough spots, overall it's a pretty fun ride. The movie follows the basic premise of the TV series. Faced with looming ecological disaster, the United Global Space Force is looking for a new planet. Against his wishes, hotshot fly-boy Major Don West (Matt Le Blanc) is assigned to pilot the Jupiter 2, taking the Robinson family across the galaxy to set up a space gate that will allow instantaneous transportation throughout the stars. Enter Dr. Zachary Smith (Gary Oldman, ) a mercenary working for sedition interests, who sabotages the mission, but inadvertently ends up trapped on the ship with the Robinsons. Big splashy adventures follow, as the group deals with a robot gone berserk, intergalactic spiders, a space monkey, and an encounter with a time bubble, where they come face to face with future versions of themselves. William Hurt plays Professor Robinson much like his character in "Altered States"; both are chronically preoccupied scientists who care for their families, but don't take time to show it. Maureen Robinson (Mimi Rogers from "Austin Powers") tries to bridge the emotional gap between Dad and the kids; Will (Jack Johnson,) Penny (Lacey Chabert,) and Judy (Heather Graham from "Boogie Nights.") The cast is fine, except for "Party Of Five's" annoying young Lacey Chabert, who looks like a midget Neve Campbell and talks like Alvin the Chipmuck. Thankfully, Gary Oldman, in his umpteenth role as a villain, keeps his portrayal of Dr. Smith in check. He captures the spirit of Harris, spouting lines like "Farewell, my platinum plated pal. Give my regards to oblivion," without approaching the hamminess ozone of his predecessor. Matt Le Blanc from "Friends" is likable as Major West, the Jupiter 2's version of Han Solo. Watch for cameos from June Lockhart (as a holographic note from school) and Mark Goddard (Major West's superior officer) from the original series. Incidentally, Bill Mumy, the original Will Robinson, was inexplicably passed over for a part, while Jonathan Harris refused to appear ("I don't do bit parts," he sniffed.) Of course, "Lost In Space" is about special effects, not acting, and the results are mixed. The film boasts over 700 computer-generated visual effects, a new record, and many of them are knockouts. After some expansive shots of a futuristic city (not as good as "The Fifth Element," but still quite nifty,) we're treated with a dazzling launch sequence as the Jupiter 2 takes flight. Unfortunately, once the family hits space, the effects become more uneven. CGI close-ups of a cryogenic procedure look phony, as do some of the creature shots. Most irritating are scenes of the Blawp, a space monkey designed by the Jim Henson folks to be "user-friendly, from a merchandising point of view. " The CGI creature moves well enough (for a walking toy commercial,) but the effect is never convincingly integrated into the scenes, looking as if it was pasted onto the individual frames of film. For its first two thirds, "Lost In Space" moves along at a brisk pace, nicely mixing visuals and genre standbys, underscored by the "Afterschool Special" subplot about young Will seeking parental validation. Things get murkier in the final reel, when the time bubble enters the storyline and angst-ridden future versions of the cast chase the family around. Naturally, all is resolved in time to set things up for a sequel. Although undeniably cheesy, "Lost In Space" is done with high style and good humor. For cinematic junk food, it's tastier than you'd expect it to be. Notwithstanding that damned Blawp, of course. Get me a hunting rifle and I'd gladly mount its head on the wall, right next to my Ewok. Copyright 1998, Ed Johnson-Ott From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:31 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: Martin Thomas ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 2 Apr 1998 05:19:49 GMT Organization: IDES Of MARCH ~Lines: 154 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6fv75l$52m$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> ~Reply-To: drmartin32@earthlink.net NNTP-Posting-Host: homer39.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891494389 5206 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11801 Keywords: author=thomas X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer39.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11010 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1838 To quote the great philosopher and poet, Gil Scott-Heron: "...the fact is, this country wants nostalgia. They want to go back as far as they can . . . even if it's only as far as last week! Not to face now or tomorrow but to face backwards." This was his criticism of America's and the Reagan administration's preoccupation with returning to the 1950's. Glorious days of unambiguous morals, two parent families, innocent chaste virtue, and whites-only drinking fountains. I'd say that in the Clinton years our stalker-like obsession with nostalgia has ebbed somewhat. Don't believe me? Just look at how fewer movies produced today are based on old tv shows as opposed to before. Huh? Huh? ... ....Of course, um . . . that's also likely to be because the vein's been pretty well tapped. I mean. You can't deny the barrel's being pretty well scraped when the latest two projects are Mr.Magoo and LOST IN SPACE. Don't give me that face, you and I both know that Lost In Space was not a good show. Oh, it was certainly likeable, entertaining, and definitely a lot of fun. Like the 60's Batman show, I didn't appreciate its humor until I was older, and I admire that it predates Star Trek, but I'm still not gonna say it was "good." Let's face it, Lost In Space was the science fiction equivalent of Gilligan's Island- 1) Every week the cast struggled to get back home. 2) Every week their plan was monkey-wrenched by the same member that got them in their fix in the first place. 3) Every week you were left with the question: Not "Will they ever get home?", but "Why don't they just kill Gilligan/ Dr.Smith?!" Of course, the obvious answer was that without Dr.Smith there was no reason to watch the show. Jonathan Harris (the actor) turned a character that was originally supposed to be killed off in the third episode into one of the great cowardly, comedic, effeminate villain archetypes of all time . . . Possibly inspiring the character that got BRAVEHEART picketed. BUT ENOUGH of my esoteric rambling, you want to know about LOST IN SPACE the movie: The first thing you probably want to know is whether it's campy like the tv show or not. Well, as you probably gathered from the trailers it is serious . . . but before you exhale let me say, that's not always a good thing. In fact, the movie is filled with many such dichotomies and double-edged swords. For instance, the conceptual artists did a fantastic job of designing everything and updating the characters. A good 40% of the movie IS computer graphics which are all Bee-Yoo-Tee-ful! ...Unfortunately, they look unrealistic, to the point of distraction. Similar to looking at the panoramic shots in TITANIC or a poorly done breast augmentation. It's the year 2058 and the Robinson Family blast off in the Jupiter 2 for Alpha Centauri in search of an inhabitable world, preferably in less than twenty years when the earth will no longer be liveable. The ship is secretly sabotaged by the traitorous Dr. Zachary Smith who doesn't make it off before lift off. He's unable to abort his plan and the ship is thrown way off course. The crew is lost in space. Just like in the show. This first half does a nice job of fleshing out these concepts. The script isn't great but it shows lots of potential, like so many Hollywood movies do . . . until the third act, where most of them fall apart. Simultaneously, as the Jupiter2 is attacked so does the story find it's structural integrity compromised. The true "hull breach" comes at 55 minutes into the movie when the crew discovers and adopts a very "cute"ewok/ snarf /abu-like alien and are attacked by a swarm of unconvincing computer-generated spiders. The plot then turns into more of a comic book- and for those of you who actually read comics and know how good some of them can be, I meant that in the way the general public thinks of "comic books." Think $.25 bins, circa 1978. We're treated to such pseudoscience as equipment made of adamnatium (a metal which I assure you only exists in Marvel comics) and flying through the sun at warp speed making you travel forward in time . . . Don't get me started on the time travel issues. There's more than enough other plot holes to go around. I guarantee that if you go see this before the end of the film you'll notice everyone in the theater turn to each other looking puzzled. Had the movie not gone the serious route some of these things might've worked. Alas . . . But really, who cares about the story? It's the characters that made Lost In Space! What about the characters? ...Hmmn . . . ...Really, most of the dialog was too bad for the actors to transcend the material and they leave you with no lasting impression, including the robot. Gary Oldman does a decent enough Dr.Smith. After years of stinking up other movies (THE PROFESSIONAL, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, AIR FORCE ONE) with his one-note, over-the-top portrayal of villains, here he's given the perfect venue. Amazingly, he shows a restraint which makes his Dr.Smith more potent, almost scary. As the movie's second hour spins out of control he slips in more of the classic "Smith-isms" but by this time it's too little too late. Jonathan Harris retains his title. The only performances that really stuck out we're those of Matt LeBlanc and William Hurt, who I now have a new respect for. He breathed alot of life into the character of John Robinson, making him more like Reed Richards. I completely felt him as a work-obsessed father/husband/ scientific genius who had his life on the back burner for the last three years while he worked on a project to try to save the earth. Next to the artists he's the best thing in the movie. I respect him even more for not wearing a hairpiece. On the flip side there's Matt LeBlanc as Maj. Don West . . . and his performance stood out for the exact opposite reason. From the old show Don West was my favorite character (next to Dr.Smith, of course). I'm sure to most of you he was just the studly guy who was Judy's (the oldest daughter) boyfriend. To me he was cool because he was the only one who wasn't fooled by or tolerant of Dr.Smith. I lived for those moments when he'd get fed up, grab Smith by the collar and beg John to let him go out back and work him over. Surrounded by big brains he was the only one with common sense. It's a damn shame that Matt was so cringingly bad. Matt's character on FRIENDS is my favorite character on the show, but he proves that his range extends no farther than that 30 minutes. His portrayal of Don West consists of nothing more than holding his arms out to his sides, talking in a deep voice and reciting his lines as if he was filling in for a sick friend. It doesn't help that he has the worst dialog in the movie (especially in the scenes he shares with Heather Graham) but I never got the impression he could do more if it'd been better. The only other character of note is "Blarp" the aforementioned cutesy comic-relief alien. He's the kind of character that's annoying to everybody except kids too young to be admitted into the movie in the first place. He was most likely put in as a harkening back to Debbie The Bloop ( a chimp with fake long ears) from the original series. If you don't remember "Debbie" it's because she was discreetly yanked after two episodes... with good reason. Adding insult to injury, Blarp's completely computer generated and resembles a cross between a muppet and the HoneyCombs cereal's mascot. He's only slightly less annoying than Lacey Chabert's voice- which sounds EXACTLY like she snorted helium between each take (How is anyone able to sit through an entire episode of PARTY OF FIVE?). ‘"Oh, the pain!!" -MARTIN -- This week: LOST IN SPACE PLUS! We're celebrating the one year anniversary of me and Brian being on the show! Tune in to the REEL DEAL Wednesdays at 10pm on ACTV Cable channel 16 See more of my reviews posted at: http://www.filmsci-fi.demon.co.uk/ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:32 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: David Sunga ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 4 Apr 1998 17:25:44 GMT Organization: None ~Lines: 119 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6g5qeo$l1q$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> ~Reply-To: zookeeper@criticzoo.com NNTP-Posting-Host: homer37.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891710744 21562 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11832 Keywords: author=sunga X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer37.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10957 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1830 LOST IN SPACE (1998) Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 4.0) ******************************** Key to rating system: 2.0 stars - Debatable 2.5 stars - Some people may like it 3.0 stars - I liked it 3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie 4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out ********************************* A Movie Review by David Sunga Directed by: Stephen Hopkins Written by: Akiva Goldsman Ingredients: Scientific family in a spaceship, saboteur, military guy, big battle with space spiders, futuristic cryosuits, time bubble, 750 special effects Starring: William Hurt, Jack Johnson, Matt LeBlanc, Gary Oldman, Mimi Rogers, Lacey Chabert, Heather Graham Synopsis: Just when Earth has nearly expended its resources, humanity has found another habitable planet called Alpha Prime. The trouble is, it takes ten years by spaceship to get there. Professor John Robinson (William Hurt) envisions a plan to build the first 'hypergate' - - a space device that a starship flies through, which will instantaneously transport the starship to a similar gate light years away. A hypergate is important because attempting to fly through hyperspace without a gate means your ship may end up at any random spot in the Universe. Robinson plans to take his family on a ten-year journey to Alpha Prime and construct a hypergate there while folks on Earth build a similar gate on Earth. Unfortunately, when their super sleek ship (the Jupiter 2) gets sabotaged Dr. Smith (who works for a terrorist group called the New World Sedition) the Robinsons enter hyperspace without a hypergate, and the hapless crew (Dad and Mom Robinson, doctor daughter Judy, rebellious teen Penny, young whiz kid son Will, pilot Major West, and Dr. Smith) gets LOST IN SPACE. In space the Robinsons must prevail over nasty space spiders and an alternate grownup Will Robinson. There are a few interesting cameos for fans of the old LOST IN SPACE TV series on which this movie is based. Look for June Lockhart (The LOST IN SPACE TV series mother) as a school principal, Mark Goddard (The LOST IN SPACE TV series Major Don West) as a general, and Marta Kristen and Angela Cartwright (the original Judy and Penny) as mission control press conference reporters. If the robot's voice sounds familiar, it's because it's still the voice of Dick Tufeld. Opinion: LOST IN SPACE is a 70 million dollar action epic based on characters from the campy old LOST IN SPACE cult classic TV series about a father, mother, daughter Judy, Judy's boyfriend Major Don West, rebellious daughter Penny, young son Will, his robot, and the sneaky Dr. Zachary Smith who are all lost in space and having adventures while trying to get back to Earth. The original TV series was about ray guns and robots and 50s style family cohesion. LOST IN SPACE (1998) is a more intense, cutting edge version of the same characters that hits nostalgic buttons but modernizes the space epic with better special effects and 1990s family issues. The main idea is to take big effects sci-fi adventure and meld it to a family situation framework. (Speaking of family, there's even a scene that parodies THE WALTONS. ) Does LOST IN SPACE succeed in what it's attempting to do? I like the way the characters start off in the beginning. FRIENDS star Matt LeBlanc gets a good change of pace. He plays Major Don West. West is a military man, an aggressive, instinct and testosterone guy who is sure to clash with cerebral scientific leader Professor Robinson. Lacey Chabert as the rebellious Penny also seems promising as a possible family issue subplot. Unfortunately, the movie pairs Penny off with a cutesy space monkey and forgets about her problems in order to focus on the less interesting character brainy Will. Similarly, Judy starts off witty against the flirtatious Don West, but quickly is relegated to the status of background Barbie doll, her banter quickly becoming old hat. On the good side, the thrill ride is good, the heroes sharper than TV, the villains and threats more intense; danger really means danger. LOST IN SPACE starts off with a space battle and the action keeps on going: planets explode, robots open fire on monsters, zooming ships avoid impossible collisions, and so on. But the pace alternates between trigger-happy action, and slow, stilted dialogue without really getting the balance right. Even the music can't decide whether to be orchestral or to be modern. As a result, LOST IN SPACE more like a set of segmented full-tilt serial adventures (with dark lighting and music to match) than a single cohesive film. The film rushes forward on stop-and-go action, and then on the last exciting serial adventure the movie abruptly ends. Several plot threads are left unresolved. For example, early on the family spots a fearful alien spacecraft, and the camera zooms in on it ominously, but afterwards no further mention is made of the issue. Likewise, Dr. Smith receives a nasty, venomous spider bite that has the potential to mutate him into a monster, and the camera zooms in on Smith's wound ominously, yet at the end of the film, we still don't know whether Smith ever receives medical attention for the bite. LOST IN SPACE is a swooshy entertaining flick, relying heavily on its stunts and 750 special effects. It falls in the Summer Blockbuster category, even though it's only April. However, the film can be so much more with a bit more fine tuning. Call me an optimist, but I'm sure - - that if the two proposed sequels to this movie pay attention to things like smooth pacing, brighter cinematography, sharp dialogue, making use of female character issues, and producing the feel of one continuous plot as opposed to the bump-and-go feel - - then the sequels can build successfully upon the foundation introduced by LOST IN SPACE. Reviewed by David Sunga April 3, 1998 Copyright © 1998 This review and others like it can be found at THE CRITIC ZOO: http://www.criticzoo.com email: zookeeper@criticzoo.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:33 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: "Nathaniel R. Atcheson" ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 4 Apr 1998 17:25:35 GMT Organization: Film Psychosis (http://www.pyramid.net/natesmovies) ~Lines: 98 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6g5qef$l1o$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer37.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891710735 21560 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11830 Keywords: author=atcheson X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer37.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11032 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1844 Lost in Space (1998) Director:  Stephen Hopkins Cast:  William Hurt, Gary Oldman, Heather Graham, Mimi Rogers, Matt LeBlanc, Lacey Chabert, Jack Johnson Screenplay:  Akiva Goldsman Producers:  Akiva Goldsman, Stephen Hopkins, Mark W. Koch Runtime:  US Distribution:  New Line Cinema Rated PG-13:  sci-fi violence By Nathaniel R. Atcheson (nate@pyramid.net) If you're going to make a film that has absolutely nothing of interest aside from its special effects, you might consider making the special effects good. Lost in Space, the new spin-off of the old TV series, does not abide by this seemingly-obvious bit of logic, and the result is a film that has a silly story complimented by unimpressive visual effects and sets. I can watch and enjoy a film that is mostly style and little substance (Starship Troopers, for example), but the style has to be stylish, not dull and rehashed like the "style" in Lost in Space. Lost in Space isn't blatantly awful, but it comes dangerously close to being so. There are too many characters (none of whom have any noticeable personality), the story is too thin (and disintegrates in to incoherence by the final scene), the interesting elements are all lifted from other films, and, like I said, the special effects aren't special. It's like trying to make a cake out of nothing but water and flour. You'll end up with something, but it won't taste good. We are introduced to one of the several main characters in an introductory space-battle that is disturbingly close to the battle scenes in the Star Wars trilogy. The hero is Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc), and he's your typical hard-edged pilot. He's recruited to escort the Robinsons (a really smart family-of-five) into the depths of space so that they can find a new place for humans to live, because the Earth can only support human life for twenty more years. The Robinsons are led by John (William Hurt) and Maureen (Mimi Rogers). The children are Judy (Heather Graham), Penny (Lacey Chabert), and Will (Jack Johnson). Also onboard is Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman), who tries to sabotage the mission, but fails, and gets caught. Well, he only fails partially: he triggers a series of light shows that result in the Robinson's ship careening into the unknown corners of uncharted space. Finally, about forty-five minutes into the film, they are actually lost, as the title rightfully implies. After this, the story of Lost in Space is muddled, at best. They end up at some lost ship (which reminded me of Event Horizon, though I know that film is too recent for Lost in Space to have ripped it off), and they have to fight off these metal spiders that have nothing to do with anything. Later, they crash on this planet in a stunt that reminded me a lot of Star Trek: Generations, and they uncover a time-travel plot by a character whose identity must be hidden for the sake of shock. Anyone seen any of this before? What a tiresome journey it is getting to the end of this film. I knew I was in trouble when the opening battle looked significantly worse than anything in any of the three Star Wars films (those films are twenty years younger than this one!). After that, the best special effects are cartoony: they are pleasing to the eye, but they look fake. Unlike the digital bugs in Starship Troopers or the dinosaurs in Spielberg's Park movies, nothing here inspires us with awe and wonder. It all looks distractingly digital, and it just doesn't mesh with the live-action performers. Speaking of live action, I've never seen a group of such talented individuals go to waste like this. Gary Oldman is good (I hear he recreates the character from the television series perfectly), and Matt LeBlanc is sometimes amusing, but the rest of these actors are bland. The biggest disappointment is Heather Graham, who was wonderful in Boogie Nights; she isn't really given anything to work with, and, in turn, doesn't end up doing anything. William Hurt and Mimi Rogers spew their lines like actors getting paid to spew lines. The other two kids, Chabert and Johnson, do their best, but are not very memorable. I don't blame any of these performers: the script simply gives them nothing to work with. I really expected to enjoy this film. I don't understand how or why Lost in Space came out so dull and familiar. There are a few pleasures, though: the last-minute escape in the final scene is fun, and some of the sequences are exciting despite their ultimate uselessness in relation to the story. And the actors, despite their lack of fire, are pleasant to watch. But Lost in Space is little more than a bundle of missed opportunities replaced by scenes we've all seen hundreds of times. But hope is not lost: if this becomes a series, just remember what Star Trek II managed to do. ** out of **** (5/10, C-) **********/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\************ Visit FILM PSYCHOSIS at http://www.pyramid.net/natesmovies Nathaniel R. Atcheson **********/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\************ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:34 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!newsfeed6.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!news-stkh.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: Craig Roush ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 6 Apr 1998 19:53:28 GMT Organization: None ~Lines: 72 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gbbro$8o2$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> ~Reply-To: kinnopio@execpc.com NNTP-Posting-Host: homer34.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891892408 8962 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11840 Keywords: author=roush X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer34.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11066 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1846 LOST IN SPACE Release Date: April 3, 1998 Starring: William Hurt, Gary Oldman, Heather Graham, Matt LeBlanc, Mimi Rogers, Lacey Chabert, Jack Johnson Directed by: Stephen Hopkins Distributed by: New Line Cinema MPAA Rating: PG-13 (some intense sci-fi action) URL: http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio/reviews/1998/lostinspace.htm Similar to 1997's STARSHIP TROOPERS, LOST IN SPACE is a story told to and written for the lowest common denominator of movie going audiences. Although TROOPERS was undoubtedly written for a more adult demographic (although the intelligence level was just as undoubtedly no higher), LOST IN SPACE starts off as and remains throughout a graphically- enhanced comic book. The flat characters and cringe-enducing dialogue are trademarks of a medium that tells stories in jerky segments and plays to ignorance and suspension of belief. While this latest sci-fi action flick may be a step up from that, it retains some of the more undesirable aspects. A kickback from the baby boomer days, LOST IN SPACE has to hope for the curiosity of adults and the willingness of adolescents to pay to see mind-blowing visuals and sound. Much as THE FIFTH ELEMENT (surprisingly, another Gary Oldman-is-the-antagonist film) did, this movie presents an awesome array of colors, lights, and sounds in one continuous stream; the producers expect the audience to sit back and say "wow." Just like the THE FIFTH ELEMENT, there is probably an Academy Award nomination in the future for LOST IN SPACE, but its on-screen tenacity will garner it nothing more than a Best Sound Editing or Best Visual Special Effects nomination. The cast and story are not nearly as good. Written by Akiva Goldsman, who has penned the last two BATMAN features and also the upcoming SUPERMAN LIVES, the story is definitely the worst part of LOST IN SPACE. It takes the Robinson family (headed up by respectable performances from William Hurt as the father and Heather Graham as the twentysomething daughter) off of Earth with the planned destination of a planet that will hold Earthlings in the future. Because Earth's life as a hospitable planet is limited, and humanity has only discovered one other possible home in the galaxy, this is the final shot. (Fitting, in mankind's current mega-consumptive mindset, that the story tells us Earthlings have only twenty years left.) No thanks to a stowaway (Gary Oldman), though, the Robinsons' ship is sent hurtling towards the sun. In a last minute attempt to escape, they hit the hyperdrive and careen into regions unknown. There are only two or three really likeable performances in the bunch. William Hurt has power and gravity on-screen, but often it gets channeled into horrible lines that detract from his character's value. His attempted conversations at family values are particularly belittling, both to the character and to the movie. Matt LeBlanc, who plays the pilot assigned to the Robinsons' spaceship, is the best as the arrogant fighter jock with a bag full of sarcastic lines. Heather Graham is also good, although her young age lends a certain questionability to her role; also, her cold shoulder to the constant come-ons of LeBlanc, like LeBlanc's character himself, get old fast. The rest of the cast play stereotype cardboard cut-outs. Director Stephen Hopkins, who directs another misfired action thriller here (after BLOWN AWAY), can't keep everything under control and some scenes are just plain ridiculous (like Jack Johnson having a conversation with a robot about 'forgetting logic'). Mostly full of groaners, but still, the movie manages to come out mediocre. FINAL AWARD FOR "LOST IN SPACE": 2.0 stars - a fair movie. -- Craig Roush kinnopio@execpc.com -- Kinnopio's Movie Reviews http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:35 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: Rob Strong ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 6 Apr 1998 20:14:52 GMT Organization: The Spaceman Spiff Company ~Lines: 113 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gbd3s$9o3$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer03.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891893692 9987 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11846 Keywords: author=strong X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer03.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10986 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1833 LOST IN SPACE A review by Robert Strong (Remove "NOSPAM" from my e-mail address to reply by e-mail.) Starring: William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Gary Oldman, Matt LeBlanc, Lacey Chabert, Heather Graham, and Jack Johnson Directed by Stephen Hopkins Rated PG-13 **1/2 out of ***** LOST IN SPACE is undeniably entertaining and shows promise early on. Unfortunately, it never really delivers on that promise. I went into the theater highly anticipating the film and wanting to like it, but I came out feeling somehow unfulfilled. The plot? Well, there's not much of one. Earth is dying at an alarming rate, so much so that in twenty years, it will be incapable of supporting life. Enter ace scientist John Robinson (William Hurt). He is the head of the team sent to colonize Alpha Prime, the only other habitable planet that humans have found. Dr. Robinson has pioneered a new type of technology called hyperspace that enables instant transportation from one place to another, provided you have a large device called a Hypergate. Without a Hypergate, you could end up anywhere. Robinson's expedition is supposed to build a Hypergate at Alpha Prime, and when it and the one at Earth are completed, people will be able to instantly escape Earth. Unfortunately, Dr. Zachary Smith (Gary Oldman) sabotages the mission and the whole Robinson family, ends up lost in space. How did the whole brood end up in space? Apparently, Dr. Robinson's only condition for accepting the mission was that he was permitted to bring his family along. Which really doesn't make much sense, since he had been severely neglecting them while working on his hyperspace technology. Several questions beg answering. One: Dr. Robinson said that he would oversee the construction of a Hypergate at Alpha Prime. With who? Just his family, a robot, and the pilot of the ship to take them to Alpha Prime, Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc)? Two: The people who hired Smith to sabotage the mission, why are thdey doing this? If you only have one shot to live, I'd take it whether I like the people or not. The movie mentions that this terrorist organization is building its own Hypergate. So, where did they get the technology to build said Hypergate? Three: At one point, Smith is betrayed by the terrorist faction. They electrocute him with a device he they had supplied to him. Then, later, he comes to with just a bad burn on his hand. How? He was getting some serious juice sent through him. I could go on. Then there is when our fearless heros get lost. They are caught in the sun's gravitational field and they only way to escape is to activate the hyperdrive--which I can see--but this somehow enables them to go _through_ the sun. How, I dunno, but they do. There were also problems with the acting. For one thing, none of the actors really convinced me that they were about to be sucked into the sun and incinerated. Another thing was that Mimi Rogers delivered many of her lines poorly. She never seemed really scared when her family members were about to be devoured by intergalactic spiders. Speaking of the spiders, it was a case of too little too late. The spiders themselves were done well, but after STARSHIP TROOPERS these bugs just don't seem that scary. Plus, there was the case of the alien monkey, Blarp. For one thing, how excatly did he get on the ship where he was discovered? And, really, did he serve a function beyond marketibity? Still, the actors can't take all the blame. When you have bad dialogue, nobody can save it all. Still, I shouldn't be too shocked since the writer/producer Akiva Goldsman also penned the wonderful dialogue of 1997's BATMAN AND ROBIN. There are several confusing elements, such as the whole time travel business. In addition, the movie tries to introduce some things that it just doesn't have time to deal with. A case in point: apparantly John Robinson's father was a military hero and...that's it. The movie tries to go somewhere with it, but eventually gives up. Well, I think that I've ramble on long enough about the negative aspects of this film. Let's get to the positive. The special effects are well done. Very well done, in fact. I believe that the exact tally was somewhere around 750 CGI's, a new record. Some actors do in fact manage good preformances, most notably Hurt and Oldman. Chabert shows promise, but her character is relegated to background scenery eventually. Director Stephen Hopkins (1996's THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS) keeps the movie moving along well, and handles the special effects quite nicely. There are also some good action sequences. Be sure to stay for the end credits sequence, but not if your the type who has seizures from strobing lights and like. The banter between Heather Graham and Matt LeBlanc is amusing at first, but grow tiresome. Plus, you have to wait almost the entire film to hear "Danger, Will Robinson!" All in all, LOST IN SPACE requires severe suspenion of disbelief to be enjoyed at all, but belief can only be suspended so far. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:36 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: Doug Skiles ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 6 Apr 1998 20:14:45 GMT Organization: Performance Motors, Ltd. ~Lines: 159 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gbd3l$9o0$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> ~Reply-To: rskiles@mail.win.org NNTP-Posting-Host: homer03.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891893685 9984 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11845 Keywords: author=skiles X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer03.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10987 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1834 LOST IN SPACE (1998) Starring: Jack Johnson (Will Robinson), Gary Oldman (Dr. Zachary Smith), William Hurt (John Robinson), Matt LeBlanc (Major Don West), Lacey Chabert (Penny Robinson), Mimi Rogers (Maureen Robinson), Heather Graham (Judy Robinson), Dick Tufeld (voice of Robot) Directed by: Stephen Hopkins, Written by: Akiva Goldsman Rated PG-13 by the MPAA for violence, strong language, and sexual situations Reviewed by Doug Skiles "We're lost... aren't we?" - Penny Robinson Yes, the Robinson family is lost again, with Dr. Smith, Major West, and, of course, the Robot, all in tow. You probably know about this, though, since it's been advertised since last August or so. It's been advertised as much as your typical effects-heavy summer film blast, but it sure as hell isn't summer yet. At any rate, as you can probably guess, LOST IN SPACE is based on the TV series of the same name that aired in the 1960s. And, as such, the plot has a number of similar aspects in it. In the future, the Earth is dying. In only two more decades, it will be uninhabitable for human life. However, one planet has been found that can be colonized to save the human race - Alpha Prime. The planet is ten years away however - and that's where the Robinson family comes in. The Robinsons, their pilot Major Don West, and a defensive robot are to take the ten year journey (spent in cryo-sleep - by the humans at least) on board the Jupiter 2 to Alpha Prime, and build a hypergate there. This gate can then be used along with the identical gate built next to Earth so allow the citizens of our lovely blue planet to transport instantaneously to Alpha Prime. It all seems like a fine plan, but no one counts on Dr. Zachary Smith, who, working in cooperation with terrorist faction, attempts to sabotage the Robinsons' mission. Unfortunately for Smith, he's caught on board the Jupiter 2 when it takes off, and, thanks to his own efforts, he, along with the Robinsons, West, and, yes, the Robot, are now "lost in space." And I'm sure you know what that leads to... "Danger Will Robinson, Danger!" - Robot And then the real questions arise. What will happen when the Robinsons become lost? What will they do with Dr. Smith? What kind of strange dangers will they encounter out in the unexplored regions of the galaxy? And what happens when talented director Stephen Hopkins and lord-of-destruction Akiva Goldsman team up to create a big-budget, major release, highly-anticipated film? LOST IN SPACE swings wildly around the quality spectrum. It has moments of intense coolness, as well as moments of intense idiocy. In the end, though, despite cheesy aspects, I had a good time. At first I felt like I had taken part in a guilty pleasure - perhaps I had no business enjoying a movie with the problems that it has. But then, why should I feel guilty? I had fun, and damn it, that's gotta be a good thing. The direction is well handled, thanks to Stephen Hopkins, who worked well on films like PREDATOR 2 (1990) and THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS (1996). The production design also looks great. Gorgeous settings fill the screen. Details down to the costumes - even those slightly BATMAN & ROBIN-like rubberish cryo-suits - looked good. And the Robot was just plain nifty. The special effects are incredible all around, from start to finish. Well, okay, there's on exception to that, but I'll get to that in a second. The sci-fi elements are, for the large part, well handled, even when they could turn out convoluted. The things the Robinsons encounter are always interesting and fun (or creepy), whether animate or inanimate. Well, okay, there's one exception to the "animate" part, but I'll get to that in a second. Time is actually taken in this film to get to know the characters a little better. Even in the midst of their problems, we learn a little more about their personalities. A couple of these scenes are cheesy, but largely, they fit in, and help move the story along well, as well as helping us to care more about John, Will, Maureen and the gang, all the way down to dear old Robot. As for the performances, the real find is Jack Johnson as Will Robinson. Child actors often come across as annoying, but Johnson is extremely good in this role. Gary Oldman's Dr. Smith is often somewhat of a friendly villian, but whatever take on the role that he's aiming for, he does it very well, as you'd expect. William Hurt and Mimi Rogers are solid as the Robinson parents, with Hurt doing well as a busy-yet-caring father (almost becoming a film cliche) and Rogers... well, not having enough screen time. Chabert also does nicely in the role of young Penny, but, this being the first time I've heard her voice, I was pretty surprised at the distrubingly inhuman crazed-chipmunk-that-rode-the-bat-out-of-hell high-pitch intonation in her voice. And can someone explain why the special effects boys decided to obviously enhance her cleavage? Matt LeBlanc, as West, was also surprising, but in a good manner. He fit exactly as he should have into the role of the good Major, and, even though he didn't stray terribly far from his character Joey on "Friends," he might be able to have a real film career - something I always thought only Courtney Cox and Matthew Perry (okay, maybe Jennifer Aniston... ) would muster. Dick Tufeld's vocal work on the Robot is something fans will recognize from the original series, as also Tufeld voiced the original Robot. His work here is an indispensable asset to the production, and really drives up the old fun factor. The Robot turns out to be not just another effect, but another good character. But what about Heather Graham? Well, this is the first film I've seen Graham in. Maybe it's the fact that her role was underwritten, but Graham doesn't show much talent here. She seems to have been hired largely for her looks. Of all the cast members, she is the most painful to watch, mostly since too much of her time is taken up serving one of the film's lamer subplots. And, as such, she's going to serve as my segue way into the bad elements of the movie. That lame subplot is the flirtation between Don West and Judy. It's pointless, it's stupid, it's badly written, and it really didn't need to be there. It even leads into a short sexual-tease scene that feels very out of place in a film that's otherwise fine for most families (as long as they don't mind the profanity). But there the subplot is, and it takes up screen time, as well as allowing for two or three fair jokes. I guess we have to let it live. Remember my certain "animate" problem? And my one special effects problem? Well, if you want to know what it is that manages to inexplicably be the only bad effect in the film, as well as be a slightly lame subplot in itself, I say only this: monkeyish Ewok-spawn must die. The first half hour of the film gives a couple of indications that you might be lined up for something unsettlingly campy. Never fear, though, as things definitely get better once people get frozen on the Jupiter 2. And, yes, the dialogue reaches a number of points where it sounds overly dumb. But most of the time, things are alright, and even when it sound stupid, it's not so bad that it can't be forgiven. Despite all this, though, the film is a good time. Cheesy at times, foolish at times, beautiful at times, unrelentingly cool at others, it's a mixed bag that finally stacks up to be a fine show. Akiva Goldsman, who killed BATMAN & ROBIN (1997) and damaged BATMAN FOREVER (1995) seems to be going up, and maybe, with work, will be a solid screenwriter at long last. Or hey, maybe not. Just stay away from the superhero franchises, Akiva. Hopkins is still solid. The cast is good - Johnson is a real find - and the effects/settings/production designs are frequently dazzling. It has humor, adventure, and creepiness. It has good, and bad, and luckily for us all, the good wins out. Yes, this is LOST IN SPACE. There's been a lot of films created based on TV shows. And for every funny THE ADDAMS FAMILY (1991) there's a painful CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU? (1994). And, sure, you can't expect them all to turn out as good as THE FUGITIVE (1993) or even MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996). But LOST IN SPACE manages to join the ranks of the more entertaining movies in the genre. It's not the best, but it's one of the good ones, and I have no problem with seeing more of the Robinson famly in the future. "Get lost," and enjoy. RATING: *** "Breathe, Penny, breathe." - Will Robinson From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:38 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-stkh.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: wchamber@netcom.ca (Bill Chambers) ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 6 Apr 1998 20:14:29 GMT Organization: NETCOM Canada ~Lines: 58 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gbd35$9np$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer03.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891893669 9977 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11843 Keywords: author=chambers X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer03.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10989 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1835 LOST IN SPACE ** (out of four) --by Bill Chambers (wchamber@netcom.ca) (For more lame-ass reviews visit my scum-hearted website: FILM FREAK CENTRAL! http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/7504 Lots to read, and a special section called CAN'T MISS where you can tell me (and others) what to see. Visit it, you damn filthy apes!) starring Matt LeBlanc, Gary Oldman, William Hurt, Mimi Rogers written by Akiva Goldsman directed by Stephen Hopkins Lost In Space is better entertainment than the TV series upon which it is based; to say that is to damn the film to faint praise, for it should eradicate all memory of that barely entertaining '60's show. Unfortunately, like its predecessor, Lost In Space only knows how to lose the Astro Family Robinson--once they're lost, it becomes a concept in search of a story. LeBlanc stars as Major Don West, an ace pilot ordered to fly the Robinson family to a distant planet so that they may prepare said planet for future colonization--Earth's destruction, due to a civil war, seems inevitable, so humans will be relocated to habitable Alpha Prime. (Why the war wouldn't then be relocated also is not a subject broached.) Unfortunately, they are sidetracked by evil engineer Dr. Smith (Oldman), who first intends to sabotage the 10-year mission but is betrayed by his own men, and stuck on board as a result. With part of Smith's plan already executed, the Robinsons are forced to abort their journey to Alpha Prime, drive through the sun, and fend for themselves against various encounters, some alien, some less so. After a rousing opening battle sequence, some nifty special effects, and the suspenseful sun trip, Lost In Space becomes lost itself. Lost in awkward characterizations (you'd never know the irritating Lacey Chabert, as Penny, was familiar with Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, let alone their daughter); lost in lifted-from-Star Trek plot points (the future- spoiling "time bubble" that is the climax has become stock sci-fi material); lost in increasingly bad computer-generated images (the Robinsons encounter a pointless, "cute" space monkey, which looks as if it has wandered off the Toy Story set--worse, so badly integrated, it looks Scotch-taped to the film). I wasn't expecting brilliance from the un-ironically bad screenwriter Goldsman (Batman and Robin), nor director Hopkins (Predator 2), so the fact that the first half is actually good makes it all the more unnerving. The cast mostly rises above the material, Chabert and LeBlanc excepted. LeBlanc comes off like his Friends alter-ego--aspiring actor Joey--playing a part for laughs in a big-budget movie. Gary Oldman and little Jack Johnson are standouts; as Will (as in, "Danger, Will Robinson!"), Johnson has a lot of charisma, and he's cute enough that they can lose the space monkey. Oh, if they had. If they had lost so many things instead of their marbles... Perhaps the sequel will be an improvement. Bill Chambers; April, 1998; originally printed in "The NewS" From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:39 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: Matt Williams ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 6 Apr 1998 20:42:09 GMT Organization: None ~Lines: 87 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gben1$b4l$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer10.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891895329 11413 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11862 Keywords: author=williams X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer10.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10995 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1837 LOST IN SPACE A film review by Matt Williams RATING: * * out of * * * * Leave it to Hollywood to remake Lost in Space, a television show that was itself a science fiction retelling of the Swiss Family Robinson. The Lost in Space TV show had devolved into camp after its first season, but though the movie remake takes itself a bit more seriously, it doesn't give us much of a reason to. Sixty years in the future, the Earth is running out of natural resources. To save the population, one scientist, John Robinson (William Hurt) has a plan. He has invented a hyperdrive, which can instantly link two areas in space, provided each area has a jumpgate (a cosmic buoy in space). He has located the nearest habitable planet, Alpha Prime, and, with the support of the world's united space organization, plans to journey there to build a companion jumpgate to the one being constructed in Earth's orbit. Until both gates are complete, travel between Earth and Alpha Prime is a time-consuming venture: the travelers must spend ten years in suspended animation. As a condition of the trip, John Robinson's crew will be composed of his family. His wife, Maureen (Mimi Rogers) is the ship's resident biologist. His eldest daughter, Judy (Heather Graham), is the ship's doctor. His two youngest kids, Penny (Lacey Chabert) and Will (Jack Johnson) are given token assignments as well. The only other person accompanying the family on their trip is Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc), who will pilot the Jupiter 2. However, there is opposition to the plan back on Earth. A radical terrorist group, known as the Global Seditionists, have enlisted the aid of Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman) to sabotage the mission. He proceeds with the sabotage, but things don't turn out as he expects. Dr. Smith finds himself an unwilling stowaway on their cosmic voyage, and the sabotaged ship ends up lost in space. The plot of the movie Lost in Space makes more sense than most of the television episodes, but only slightly. If you start to think about the details too much, the entire plot collapses. So, to cure that: don't think about the plot. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. There are several annoying things about Lost in Space, and the most irritating is Blarp, the Space Monkey. He serves no purpose whatsoever in the story except possibly as a merchandising tie-in. He's evidently supposed to be cute, since he has saucer eyes and he burps after eating, but he doesn't blend with the tone of the rest of the movie. And for that matter, he doesn't blend much at all (despite his chameleonic coloring)...he's obviously a special effect. He's about as seamlessly integrated into the film as an animated cereal mascot. Coming from the rigid world of stop motion, special effects creature animators have terribly overcompensated in the world of CGI. No realistic creature constantly moves every point of his body at every second. Someday animators will find a happy medium, and the effects shots of Lost in Space will look as dated as King Kong. The characterizations in Lost in Space are adequate, although the characters themselves are, for the most part, bland. In an effort to spice things up and bring the Robinson family into the '90s (or the 2050s, as the case may be), the whole family has been dysfunctionalized. John Robinson has become a distant workaholic father who alienates his whole family. Penny is now a helium-voiced rebel, and Will is a misunderstood genius who only wants acknowledgment from his dad. Of all the cliched relationships aboard the wayward spaceship, the developing romance between Don West and Judy Robinson, while still not uncovering new ground, at least provides a humorous diversion. Though not quite as sniveling as in the television series, the character of Dr. Zachary Smith is still the most interesting. Gary Oldman does a good job, but hardly seems to be stretching his range here. However, the film does come up with an interesting solution to the conflicting interests of killing off the villain and keeping him around for potential sequels. With its stock characters and a complex plot about as flimsy as a spiderweb, this new Lost in Space is certainly not going to become a classic. It's sole asset is its eye candy. If you just turn off your brain and relax, it will help to pass the time. Copyright 1998 Matt Williams - Matt Williams (matt@cinematter.com) Reviewer for Cinematter: http://www.cinematter.com Home of over 500 reviews, and information on over 600 upcoming releases From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:40 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: david@cats.ucsc.edu (David Michael Wright) ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 6 Apr 1998 20:43:19 GMT Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz ~Lines: 74 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Distribution: na Message-ID: <6gbep7$b7g$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer10.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891895399 11504 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11866 Keywords: author=wright X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer10.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10994 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1836 Review of Lost in Space (1998) *** out of **** By David Wright For those of us growing up in the days of 2001, THX- 1138, the Outer Limits, Star Trek (or, to a lesser extent, Fantastic Voyage or Planet of the Apes), we continue, often without reason, to think sci-fi is really about history and politics, sociology and even philosophy. We scoff at the simplistic story line of a Star Wars but are vindicated when the real Han Solo contemplated the meaning of life, death and revenge in the Blade Runner. Currently, the battle rages, with a victory in a Terminator, Dark City, or Gattaca, a loss with Independence Day, Event Horizon or Sphere, the retreat into hapless comedy in Men In Black and on and on. So where does Lost in Space fit into this war of ideas? A few scant reviews are at least somewhat positive. The estimated $20 million box office take is unanimous in its verdict: the film is the first to sink the Titanic from the #1 spot. The trailers promise non-stop action and visual effects - which the $80 million dollar film delivers (unlike Independence Day, it actually contains more startling effects than advertised). Fears that Friends co-star Matt LeBlanc would prove obnoxious are unfounded, partly because his character is made to make fun of, and partly because he seems to have no trouble shaking his 'Friends' image. But true science fiction fans - who cannot avoid seeing either a Dark City or an Event Horizon - will be more than suspicious of the film for it's television namesake - but to condemn the film along these lines will likely be misguided, despite the reference to various galactic monsters, the famous robot, and two cameos from the TV show. And certainly it is true that, despite our best whishes, the film offers little to tease the imagination of distant cultures, societies and other forms of life. Its production and direction reminds one of a Starship Troopers - without the militaristic or gory overtones. It is relatviely easy to make fun of the film's thin characterizations, convoluted plot, and the distinct odor of a bad Disney movie. But I think this will again be a mistake. Overall, this is a *family* film --in the good sense of the word--, and I cannot think off hand of another sci-fi work that has attempted so much in that direction. It resembles a Twister in the skies: sandwiched in between the stunning visuals are poignant reminders of family trials and tragedies, tales of interpersonal conflict and celebration. But unlike Twister, there is the makings of an interesting plot - although unbelievable to true devotees of the genre- nonetheless it advances the development of the characters (who actually resemble human beings with real problems). And the acting is fine. William Hurt downplays his sci-fi heroism (rather like Dustin Hoffman in Sphere). Phrases are muted and depressed, his voice is a calm monotone, and he stands in mammoth contradistinction from the chaos swirling around him. Mimi Rogers plays a splendid unappreciated wife, unperturbed by her husband's excuse that he is 'saving the world'. No more should really be said concerning the familial conflict, suffice to say it is well done by children and adults alike. It is this element which really saves the film and is probably the reason that Hurt agreed to do the picture. So yes, I think this is a good sci-fi movie. No, it does not stretch our imaginations, but it does have interesting characters and revolves around human conflict. And it does so in the style that we come to expect: rapid fire sepcial effects and fireworks. For adding 'family values' to the genre, the film should win a prize. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:41 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!masternews.telia.net!news-nyc.telia.net!nntp.abs.net!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: Jamie Peck ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 9 Apr 1998 18:19:52 GMT Organization: The Retriever Weekly ~Lines: 88 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gj3g8$quh$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer07.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892145992 27601 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11896 Keywords: author=peck X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer07.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11015 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1839 LOST IN SPACE Reviewed by Jamie Peck ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rating: ** (out of ****) New Line / 2:12 / 1998 / PG-13 (violence, innuendo, language) Cast: William Hurt; Matt LeBlanc; Mimi Rogers; Jack Johnson; Heather Graham; Gary Oldman; Lacey Chabert; Jared Harris; Mark Goddard; Lennie James; voice of Dick Tufeld Director: Stephen Hopkins Screenplay: Akiva Goldsman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The summer movie season gets off to a premature start this year with the early April release of "Lost in Space," a sloppy remake of the futuristic 1965-68 television series (which, ironically, was set in 1997) and New Line Cinema's bid for franchise paradise. Upcoming installments, if any, had better be stronger than this one. After a decent set-up and a following 40 minutes or so that's considerable amusement, "Lost in Space" gets stranded with a bunch of hokey ridiculousness involving time portals, mutant spiders and older versions of several cast members; what starts off as slick, mindless entertainment slowly develops an irritating case of intrusive family values. If the first half of "Lost in Space" is satisfying junk food, then everything thereafter is an overstuffed club sandwich -- one loaded with ham and cheese. In 2058, Earth is sustaining itself by branching out into the cosmos, and one family is selected to play a key role in the colonization process. They are the Robinsons -- Professor John (William Hurt), his wife Maureen (Mimi Rogers) and their children Judy (Heather Graham), Penny (Lacey Chabert) and Will (Jack Johnson) -- and the intended plan is for them, along with gung-ho pilot Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc), to board the spacecraft Jupiter 2 and make a many-year journey to the distant planet Alpha Prime. Once there, the crew will establish some sort of portal that will allow Earthlings to make the jump to Alpha Prime in no time. But thanks to villainous saboteur and stowaway Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman) and his Global Sedition cohorts, things don't quite go so smoothly. Around a half-day into the flight, the Jupiter 2 is thrown off course. When everyone comes to, they're in a foreign place in an unspecified time, and must find their way back home or remain lost in space forever. In patches, "Lost in Space" is as glibly fun as a video game. Director Stephen Hopkins (that awful killer-lion flick "The Ghost and the Darkness") brings the major action sequences, surprisingly few though they are, to giddy, palpable life. Two extended bits stand out from the eventual blur: the initial siege on the Jupiter 2 by the nameless Robot programmed to protect and aid the Robinsons, and the search through a creepy ghost ship as the movie nears its midsection. That Robot (yes, he gets to say the immortal line, "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!"), by the way, is a far better way to entertain the family audiences than the computer-generated Blawp, a cuddly, Gizmo-esque creature the Robinsons pick up on their trek. The Blawp doesn't even look like it's sharing the same scenes with the human actors, but most of the other special effects work nicely, especially the movie's sleek sets. The interesting ensemble cast is partially ill-used. Oldman always makes a good bad guy, and his "Lost in Space" work makes one wish that the movie hadn't cut to some special effect every time his Dr. Smith threatens to become a complex personality. On the plus side, Hurt and Johnson have a realistic father-and-son chemistry. Matt LeBlanc is essentially playing his "Friends" alter-ego as a hotshot hero (complete with one-liners like, "Okay, last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer!"), but his aloof swagger works, and this movie is, at least, way better than Ed. Mimi Rogers and Heather Graham (Rollergirl from "Boogie Nights"), lovely and talented though they are, are trotted out whenever a reaction shot is needed; Graham's sexual flirtation with LeBlanc is never developed and largely feels like wasted time. Spunky Lacey Chabert ("Party of Five") fares the worst, sounding like she's been sucking on a helium tank while offscreen. "Lost in Space" was written by Akiva Goldsman, the man behind the script for the very underrated (and surely I can't be the only one to think so) "Batman & Robin." He's toned down the series' high camp factor in place of a dark, more sinister edge, which serves the first 60 minutes of the movie well. But "Lost in Space"'s murky tone and visuals just don't mesh with part two's elongated family therapy session. This year's first official summer release is a botched one, with too many distractions and flaws to even rank as pleasing eye-candy -- a big no-no as far as seasonal movies are concerned. As Robot might say, "Danger, moviegoers! Danger!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ © 1998 Jamie Peck E-mail: jpeck1@gl.umbc.edu Visit the Reel Deal Online: http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~jpeck1/ "Suggestions, please, for the fourth movie in the series. How about ‘Look Who's Talking Back,' in which the audience gets its turn?" -- Roger Ebert on "Look Who's Talking Now" From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:42 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsfeed.wli.net!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: redman@bvoice.com (Michael Redman) ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 9 Apr 1998 18:45:25 GMT Organization: ... ~Lines: 117 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gj505$sal$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> ~Reply-To: redman@bvoice.com NNTP-Posting-Host: homer35.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892147525 29013 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu Summary: r.a.m.r. #11906 Keywords: author=redman X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer35.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11026 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1840 Lost and barely worth finding Lost In Space A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright 1998 By Michael Redman ** (out of ****) There are movies that are an artistic vision, struggle to get made and are released without regard to public desires. Often these are the best films ever made. And then there's "Lost In Space", the movie that pushed "Titanic" off the top of the boxoffice. Everything about this film appears calculated to make money. The merchandising potential is obvious. Most characters look like potential action figures. Many scenes seem to exist only to inspire video games. The rest are toy designs. The more subtle manipulation is an attempt to draw in every possible audience segment. Baby Boomers will be attracted to nostalgia for the television series. Twenty-somethings will follow "Friends" star Matt LeBlanc into the theaters. Teens want to see zippy space ships and big explosions. Adolescents have rebellious Penny Robinson to identify with. For the "Home Alone" crowd, Will Robinson has become several years younger than he was on television. While it's no sin to appeal to everyone, such a strategy serves to dilute the product. Appealing to the lowest common denominators of several different groups satisfies no one. Earth of 2058 is in trouble. Man has trashed all of its natural resources and needs another planet to use up. Professor John Robinson (William Hurt) is the man with a plan. His hypergate will allow the population to instantly transport to Alpha Prime, a hospitable planet millions of miles away. To achieve this, he needs to take a 10-year trip there to construct a hypergate. Seeing himself as a devoted family man although he is too busy to ever spend time with them, he takes everyone along. Wife Maureen (Mimi Rogers), biochemist daughter Judy (Heather Graham), reluctant daughter Penny (Lacey Chabert) and boy-genius son Will (Jack Johnson) all suit up for the family vacation of a lifetime. Military pilot Don West (LeBlanc) is assigned to get them to where they are going safe and sound. The plan falls through when Dr. Zachary Smith (Gary Oldman) is paid off by the Global Sedition, a group dedicated to preventing the hypergate, to sabotage their ship. Smith is betrayed by his employers and becomes an unwilling stowaway. When the damaged starcraft starts to fall into the sun, West shifts into hyperspace to escape their imminent destruction. Unfortunately without a hypergate, they have no control over where they go. Materializing in an unknown area of the universe, they are -- you guessed it -- lost in space. Based on the sixties television program (which in turn was apparently stolen from the "Space Family Robinson" comic book), the film attempts to update the 30-year old series with mixed success. The original had a number of problems itself. After the first few episodes that were played somewhat seriously, the focus changed to "camp". Will, Dr. Smith and the nameless robot fell into one silly situation after another each week. Viewing the episodes decades after they first aired, they are entertaining _because_ they are so goofy. Back then, they were frequently painful. There's no intentional foolishness in the 1998 version. A few years before the Millennium, we want our escapism dark. Dr. Smith is no longer merely selfish, now he's purely evil as a lifestyle choice. The warm family relations have given way to the dysfunctional family of the nineties. Professor Robinson ignores his kids and his long-suffering wife. Penny is an angry pre-teen. Will wants only his father's approval. Judy isn't much of anything. Even the robot starts off as a destructive force. All the nonsense in the film is apparently unwitting. The story is weak and falls apart. The beginning half hour designed to establish the characters is dull and they never become real people. The time-travel mysterious plot device towards the end is supposed to contain surprises but doesn't. Supposedly the family is lost, but no one appears to care about getting back home. Director Stephen Hopkins ("Predator 2") doesn't deliver. The acting is genuinely second-rate with rare exceptions. Hurt and Rogers are both capable of superior performances, but don't seem to even try. Chabert has an appealing punk appearance, but when she opens her mouth, her helium-powered squeaky voice sounds as if it's been recorded at the wrong speed. Only Oldman and Johnson show any acting chops. Of course even the best actors can't do anything with a disastrous script. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (responsible for that other calamity "Batman And Robin") offers them nothing to work with. With a record number of special effects, you'd expect that there would at least be some eye candy. But, no. The deadly spiders are a joke. The alien space-monkey that doesn't look like it exists in the same place as anything else and has no function in the film. It might as well have been an infomercial for a new toy...which is probably is. Not everything is horrendous. There are a few bright spots. Will operates the robot via a virtual reality set-up and it looks like someone for at least a few minutes is having fun. The cameos by the original cast are fun although presumably Billy Mumy (Will) is too busy with "Babylon 5" to show up. Dr. Smith's cloaked incarnation is handled well but when he sheds the wrap, it's the same ol' same ole. Watching the closing credits is like experiencing a bad Sega game. I was so convinced that the film only existed to inspire toys, that I stopped by the theater lobby to see if the had a "Lost In Space" video game. They didn't. Not yet. (As a teenager, Michael Redman, writer of this column for 23 years, never would have believed that he could write these words: the "Lost In Space" television series was better.) [This appeared in the 4/8/98 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at redman@bvoice.com] -- mailto:redman@bvoice.com This week's film review at http://www.bvoice.com/ Film reviews archive at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Apr 14 12:25:43 1998 ~From: Michael Dequina ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 12 Apr 1998 19:24:52 GMT Organization: None ~Lines: 87 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gr4e4$gd1$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer19.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892409092 16801 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11931 Keywords: author=dequina X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer19.u.washington.edu Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!genius.dat.hk-r.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-stkh.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11041 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1845 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? __________________________________________________________ Michael Dequina Chat Forum Host, The Official Michael Jordan Web Site http://jordan.sportsline.com mj23@michaeljordanfan.com michael_jordan@geocities.com | mrbrown@ucla.edu >My personal WWW sites< Mr. Brown's Movie Site: http://welcome.to/mrbrown Michael Jordan Beyond the Court: http://fly.to/michaeljordan A Michael Jordan Fan's Heartbreak: http://fly.to/mj23 Personal Page: http://welcome.to/w3md >Other WWW sites I work on< CompuServe Hollywood Hotline: http://www.HollywoodHotline.com Albany Online: http://www.AlbanyOnline.com Eyepiece Network: http://www.eyepiece.com "I didn't know what to expect. It's like something you chase for so long, but then you don't know how to react when you get it. I still don't know how to react." --Michael Jordan, on winning his first NBA championship in 1991 ...or, my thoughts after meeting him on November 21, 1997 __________________________________________________________ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 17 17:13:06 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed5.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!arclight.uoregon.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Steve Kong Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 9 Apr 1998 18:45:55 GMT Organization: The Hard Boiled Movie Page (http://boiled.sbay.org/boiled/) Lines: 126 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gj513$sar$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer35.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892147555 29019 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11909 Keywords: author=kong X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer35.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11093 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1855 LOST IN SPACE (1998) A film review by Steve Kong Edited by Cher Johnson Copyright 1998 Steve Kong I'm not old enough to have seen the Lost in Space TV series. And though many of the people going to see Lost in Space will have enjoyed the series, I figure there are going to be a lot of people like me who have never seen it either. Knowing the TV series is not one of the prerequisites for the movie though. There's only one prerequisite for the movie: The willingness to turn off your brain. Lost in Space begins with a loud and eyebrow-raising space dogfight that had me at the edge of my seat. With the adrenaline up, I thought I was going to be in for a roller coaster ride of a movie, but things slow down. >From here we get some background story and learn about the Robinson family and why they are planning to leave Earth for Alpha Prime. It seems that Earth's resources are being depleted at a horrific rate and in a short time, the Earth will no longer be able to support human life. The only way to save the human race is to move and inhabit another planet. That planet--with water and a suitable atmosphere--is Alpha Prime. However, in order to get people off Earth in a timely manner, there needs to be a quick way to get them across the galaxy. This is where the Robinsons fall into the story. The Robinsons are to travel by space ship to Alpha Prime and set up a jump gate -- much like the one in Stargate, but in space -- so that it can match up with the jump gate being built on Earth. Once both gates are completed, humans can be shipped across the galaxy via hyperspace and arrive at Alpha Prime instantaneously. Without the gates, though, any hyperspace travel will shoot the travelers into some unknown position in space -- as the Robinsons are quick to find out. The Robinson family is composed of: John (William Hurt) the father and professor, Maureen (Mimi Rogers) the mom and professor, Judy (Heather Graham) the oldest daughter and doctor, Penny (Lacey Chabert) the younger daughter, and Will (Jack Johnson) the son. The Robinsons will travel 10 years in the ship Jupiter 2, which will be piloted by Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc). Major West is taken straight out of the movie Top Gun, spilling embarrassing lines as "Rock 'n Roll!" and "Putting the pedal to the metal!" Unbeknownst to the family, the evil Doctor Smith has been left for dead aboard the Jupiter 2 after he sabotages the mission to Alpha Prime. Sixteen hours into the flight all Hell breaks loose; John and Major West wake up to discover that the Jupiter 2 is trapped in the Sun's gravitational pull and they are soon going to go melting into the Sun. Major West flies the Jupiter 2 through the Sun with the hyperdrive engines. Yes, you read that right, he flies through the Sun. The drawback of the hyperdrive again is that the ship is shot into some unknown part of space. Or is it? The family soon finds that they are floating next to a man-made space ship that looks much like the Event Horizon. But, I was relieved to find that it was not the dreaded Event Horizon, it is the Proteus. From here the movie has two more "acts" or parts. One includes exploring the Proteus and the other is exploring an icy planet. The last few minutes of the film make no apparent sense. It includes time travel and some more hyperspace jumping. If you have seen Lost in Space and understand what was going on with the time travel, please let me know what it's all about. Smith is supposed to be the main antagonist in Lost in Space but a few others crop up, maybe unintentionally. And those would be the family members themselves. The Robinsons are not quite a close knit family. Actually, they are the poster family for dysfunctional families in America. In Lost in Space, the family spends more time arguing with each other than with Doctor Smith. Lost in Space has two major flaws. First, the script by Akiva Goodsman is horrible. For those of you who don't know the name Akiva Goodsman, he's the guy who wrote the awful follow-ups to the first two Batman films. Batman and Robin contains the worst writing I've ever heard. This writer has no clue about how to write dialogue. He only knows how to write one-liners and short quips-- and even these made me cringe. Second, Stephen Hopkins directs the movie. Hopkins is the director who brought us Blown Away and Ghost and the Darkness. I've only seen Blown Away and that was an uneven thriller, at best. Lost in Space suffers from the same problem that Hopkin's Blown Away did: the direction is very uneven. He can certainly get the adrenaline pumping during action scenes, but he is not able to take that energy and move it into some of the non-action scenes. Hopkins has no clue about pacing. The actors are OK. William Hurt is somewhat bland as John Robinson, but heck, I can see why, he's an egghead like myself. Mimi Rogers does what she can with her "Come home safe, John" role. Heather Graham, whom I loved in Boogie Nights, gets a throwaway part here. She really doesn't have much to do. Lacey Chabert, who looks like a miniature version of Neve Campbell with a 'magic-marker as eye-liner look' and Daffy Duck voice, is a toss up between really annoying and really really annoying. Jack Johnson is actually pretty worthy as Will Robinson, but he doesn't get enough screen time. Matt LeBlanc is Joey from Friends in space, he's not doing too much new here. The big performance is from Gary Oldman and he is not given enough time either. One small thing that Lost in Space suffers from is what I call the "Ewok Syndrome." This is where the moviemakers throw in a cute creature into a movie just so that they can sell cute dolls on the after-market. For Return of the Jedi it was the Ewoks, for Lost in Space it's a space monkey of sorts named Blawp, which serves no purpose and even detracts from the film. New Line just wants to sell Blarp dolls to little kids who find Blarp cute. So, what's good about Lost in Space? It's special effects, sets, landscapes, and fun factor. The press releases for Lost in Space boast that it has some 700-plus special effects. I didn't bother to count, but the special effects are pretty impressive. The sets by Norman Garwood are beautiful and very futuristic. The landscapes are nothing but awe-inspiring; they bring back memories of the landscapes from The Fifth Element. And the fun factor is definitely there if you ignore the lame story and unnecessarily convoluted plot. In the end, with all of its flaws, Lost in Space is fun to see. But, please walk into the theatre with the brain in the "off" position. Don't Miss Lost in Space. Danger Will Robinson! Lost in Space is a mindless fun movie! --- steve kong reviews@boiled.sbay.org reviews from a guy who loves the cinema http://boiled.sbay.org/boiled/ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 17 17:13:06 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed5.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!news-nyc.telia.net!nntp.abs.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.gte.net!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: "Yen, Homer" ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 9 Apr 1998 18:46:02 GMT Organization: None ~Lines: 68 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gj51a$sas$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer35.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892147562 29020 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11910 Keywords: author=yen X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer35.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11092 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1854 "Lost in Space" - Lack of Thrust Throws Movie Off Course by Homer Yen (c) 1998 "Danger, Will Robinson, danger!" These mere four words may have been among the most venerable that survived the fickle decade of the '60s. Although only verbal remnants from television's past, Hollywood hopes that this familiar phrase will entice a generation of adults and their children to watch one more adventure featuring the space-faring Robinsons. Dr. Smith, Father John, Mother Maureen, sisters Judy and Penny, young Will, and Robot have all been resurrected in the '90s version of a family who gets lost in space. In the future, with Earth dying and her natural resources at dangerously low levels, ongoing efforts have been made to find a suitable sister world to colonize. The only one that they know of is half way across the galaxy. To complicate matters, a rival humanoid species (Seditionists) is also trying to be the first to colonize that planet. John (William Hurt) is a leading scientist and has decided that their family will be the first to make the long 10-year journey across the galaxy. At the helm is Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc), an accomplished fighter pilot as seen in the beginning, visually spectacular, fight sequence. If they safely arrive, the Robinsons can construct a space portal that will link to another space portal, currently being constructed in Earth's orbit, which would make transportation between the two planets almost instantaneous. But the Seditionists want to thwart their attempts and use Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman) as their saboteur. Suffice it to say, while it is an interesting premise that gets the Robinsons into space, it is a contrived sequence that eventually brings the entire cast together on a ship that has been thrown off course, lost in the galaxy. And despite the fact that it might seem that this film would focus on the wild dangers and life-threatening hazards that would face any pioneering family, at its core, it is a film about family values (togetherness, sacrifice, et al.) buried under layers upon layers of special effects. Presumably, children may learn something valuable but not even realize it. But given the gravity of the Robinson's situation, the movie seemed too tame to be an effective science-fiction thriller and too 'tense' to be a story for children. It fell somewhere into the murky middle. A lot of territory in "Space" is left unexplored. The beginning battles suggest that even greater dangers await, but most of the following action is tepid at best. As a family ripped from their roots on Earth and forced to travel light years across the galaxy, all except one seemed all too willing to just leave everything behind. There was lots of room for more drama and more excitement. The film only devotes 'just enough' time to showcase young Will's budding genius or John's search for balance between his mission and his family. I was also disappointed with Judy, who spoke, perhaps two lines in the whole film. Played by Heather Graham, she was worlds away from her unique performance as Rollergirl in Boogie Nights. Here, she is reduced to shooing away the egomaniacal Major West, whom, of course, she eventually gives in to. Oldman, however, seemed to enjoy his role as the malevolent Dr. Smith. There's a scene that perfectly encapsulates the tone of this film. After boarding a drifting ship, the party soon discovers that it is infested with metal and flesh eating, spider-like creatures. Young Will, using a 'holographic interface', assumes control of the robot. It looks like one huge video game as he zaps the oncoming critters. Consequently, there is as much thrill here as there is playing Space Invaders. "Lost in Space" is full of imaginative special effects, and may turn out to be the next big simulation ride at Universal studios. But as a major film, it comes across looking and feeling like an overblown Saturday morning cartoon. Grade: C From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 17 17:13:06 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed5.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!europa.clark.net!204.127.161.1!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: David Wood ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 9 Apr 1998 18:47:27 GMT Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC ~Lines: 60 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gj53v$sbb$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer35.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892147647 29035 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11919 Keywords: author=wood X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Errors-To: obsidian@news1.panix.com Originator: grahams@homer35.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11097 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1856 I'm bitter because I was just suckered again. But let me explain: Lost in Space is actually an interesting concept, by literary and science fiction standards; the effects were spectacular; William Hurt is an amazing actor (with a few great sci-fi movies under his belt - see Until the End of the World); Gary Oldman isn't so shabby either. And then we have Heather Graham. Did you see Drugstore Cowboy? Hmmm... but we digress. But as usual, there's a problem, and his name is Akiva Goldsman. To my great amusement, they always put the writer's name in very SMALL print on posters and trailers. This goes along with the current thinking in American oviemaking, which is that the writer is really not a very important part of the process. This, in turn, explains why people like Akiva Goldsman continue to get work after writing movies like Batman and Robin. Picture Akiva as Doctor Smith. It's a going to be a Fantastic Voyage. William Hurt and his sit-com family have to be delivered to an Alien World to begin the Evacuation of Earth. It's a dangerous mission, but all the necessary steps to avoid catastrophe have been taken. The Jupiter 2 spaceship is so advanced that it barely needs its rough-riding and crass pilot (Director Stephen Hopkins)... but then, as if with a soundtrack by the Beasty Boys, enter the screenwriter: SABOTAGE. What's good about this movie? The visual effects team did an amazing, amazing job. The ship, the robot, the computers, the sets and props were all at a level of slickness worthy of a much different, beter movie - and all while being eerily nostalgic of the original TV material. In fact, with the exception of that shameful Disney refugee of an alien delivered by the Henson people, the special effects team deserved to have their OWN movie. Since we're naming names, I have some guesses about who is responsible for this spurious burst of talent in what would otherwise be a complete loss: Norman Garwood (Hook, Brazil) and Ray Lovejoy (2001) are here. Unfortunately, this time their agents appear to have been asleep at the wheel. Don't worry guys, it happens to the best of us. The movie they ended up with was actually good for about the first thirty or forty minutes. There are some exciting space fight scenes. The obligatory plot developments, featuring cameos by the still struggling ex-cast of the original Lost in Space (i.e. June Lockhart), are tolerable. There are hints of Time Travel. The suspense actually builds. Then we get lost. Lost in the land of bad science and bad cliches. The actors (looking visibly embarrassed) do a pitiful job of clinging to what little bits of character they can find in their roles. Mimi Rodgers ends up having to do a bad impression of Louise Jefferson (you did not go, girlfriend); the poor kid from Friends ends up having to ruin what was otherwise a decent acting job by having to speak his lines; finally we culminate with a flourish by Mr. Goldsman that is practically Las Vegas Vaudevillian; an attempt to rip-off both the ending to Star Trek III and Return of the Jedi at the same time. No, Akiva, not even if James Kirk and Billy Dee Williams team up is it possible to achieve liftoff by flying into the ground. Ahh well, another perfectly good liberal arts education gone to waste.... -- David Wood obsidian@panix.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 17 17:13:06 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed5.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!news-nyc.telia.net!nntp.abs.net!newsfeed.wli.net!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams ~From: "Shane R. Burridge" ~Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews ~Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies ~Date: 9 Apr 1998 18:47:19 GMT Organization: Griffith University ~Lines: 160 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6gj53n$sba$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer35.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892147639 29034 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11918 Keywords: author=burridge X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer35.u.washington.edu ~Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11098 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1857 Lost in Space (1998) 124 min. If any recent trend can bear witness to the all-too-often voiced complaint that Hollywood has run out of ideas, then it is the recycling of 1960s television shows into big-budget, star-powered cinema updates. It's jump-on-the-bandwagon thinking, of that there is no doubt, but unlike other recent trends - the 'based on video game' film, the 'return to the 70s disaster flicks', the 'make a movie from anything by Jane Austen' mini-booms - this bandwagon looks set to roll on for some time yet. Why is this happening, and why now? It could be said that this flood of old television to the box-office is less a process of revivifying our cultural past than colonizing it - the simple fact that we are in a position to look back gives us the right for enlightened comment and critique. Or it could be some kind of fin-de-siecle anxiety, harrying us to polish and repackage these old shows before they are looked back on as some potentially embarrassing remnant of the 20th century (Oh yeah, we knew that show was stupid, but look, we made this out of it to prove that we knew). It's really more simple than either of these ideas: these TV makeovers are Hollywood's way of saying Yes, we know we've run out of ideas, we're just not trying to hide it any more, and you'd better get used to it because the Baby Boomers are running this asylum now, and we grew up with these old shows, so you're going to take this reheated hash and scarf it up just the same way you've always done, without any need for us to apologise for it. Because, folks, postmodernism means never having to say you're sorry. This kind of honesty is almost beyond criticism. It's Hollywood waving its flag and saying, Look Ma, no ideas! So, for the most part, we've shut up and treated these films as the harmless reminiscences they inevitably turn out to be. Their treatment is wholly predictable: part revision, part homage, all marketing. But a few exceptions have slipped through the net: Betty Thomas' necessarily cruel (but affectionate - you can be as iconoclastic as you like with this nostalgia as long as you stay affectionate) repositioning of THE BRADY BUNCH; and Brian De Palma's take on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, which saw the Impossible Missions Force blown away in the first scene (a move which several people were not pleased with, because with that one cavalier stroke, De Palma demonstrated that he was sadly lacking in that all-important affection for the original). Which brings us to LOST IN SPACE, and another problem concerning TV remakes, for it is impossible to separate the cinema experience from the historical product that has imprinted its own identity so firmly in our culture. LOST IN SPACE was originally intended to be serious science-fiction but descended into camp once Jonathan Harris (Dr Smith, a murderous saboteur who was meant to be written out after half a dozen episodes) started getting the most of the show's fan mail. Soon LOST IN SPACE became nothing more than 'The Dr Smith, Will Robinson, and Robot Show', and as the budget became skimpier (which explains why they would spend a whole season on the same planet, then take off and land on another planet with the same rocks arranged differently) and the not-very-special effects even cheaper, the once-serious concept took on a wayward surrealism unprecedented in prime-time TV. In fact, for many young viewers the show's absurdity made it frightening. LOST IN SPACE went beyond all logic and thus into the territory of nightmare. One particularly terrifying episode (for me, anyway) found Will and Doctor Smith in a fog-shrouded minimalist street set of Chinatown talking about buying hot dogs while oversized spiders lay lurking in the dark. With a memory of the show as vivid as that, how could any belated cinema remake stand alone? Nevertheless, the 1998 LOST IN SPACE manages to pull off this balancing act, and it does it by returning to the show's roots. It may be affectionate, spirited, even respectful in an odd sort of way, but most importantly it manages to do what its television predecessor could not - have the muscle to back up its intentions. Its most apparent strength is the special effects, not only in quality but also sheer volume - this is one of the most FX-saturated movies you're likely to have seen in some time. It's strange that the 'biological' effects - i.e. monsters and critters in general - don't hold up as well as the rest, but in a strange way it is reflective of the monsters in the original show, which were just plain lousy (Look! There's a woman with her face painted green! Look! There's a guy wearing a sparkly bowler hat and a stocking over his head!) The second strength the 1998 version has is Akiva Goldsman's script, which manages to employ several motifs and undercurrents of the show without making them obvious in-jokes or necessary prerequisites with which to 'appreciate' the update. There are spins on the businesslike space-pioneer 'give-me-a-hand-with-the-force-field-Don' relationship (or nonrelationship) between John Robinson and Don West; the friendship/bonding between Will and the Robot; and most dramatically, the unspoken (but apparent to those of us who were regular viewers of the series) surrogate father relationship Will had with Dr Smith - which in this version is pursued to a horrible conclusion the original producers could never have foreseen. Fine so far, but will the fans like it? Fandom is a difficult demographic. The elements of the series held in most affection will be the same ones which most pointedly fail to deliver for several viewers on several levels, but the most common point of focus will be the replacement of new actors for old. Who, for example, could possibly replace Jonathan Harris as Doctor Smith? I wouldn't have thought it would have been Gary Oldman, but he does a creditable job. Jack Johnson similarly slips comfortably into the role of Will. I suspect it may be Lacey Chabert's portrayal of Penny that will rankle many fans (pure prejudice on my part, since I had an enormous crush on Angela Cartwright as a kid), whose character does admittedly become more engaging and less whiny as the film goes on, but what does she keep complaining about? At least the Robinsons have to be a step up from the PARTY OF FIVE family she's been stuck with for the last five years. Perversely, it is the only non-human character of the series that is the most significantly irreplaceable. Hearing the voice of Dick Tufeld, the only actor from the original to reprise his role (the Robot) in the film, provides viewers with the most immediate nostalgic experience that LOST IN SPACE has to offer - that, and I suppose the revamped title theme played over the end credits (not the show's more memorable original theme, however - remember, it had two!) The only major departure from prewritten characterization would be Don, as played by Matt LeBlanc - really, it's just another version of his character Joey from FRIENDS - but it's a perversely satisfying change: at last we get to see Don hitting on John and Maureen Robinson's cute older daughter Judy. And about time. I'm wary of making a comment as general as 'Fans of the TV show will love LOST IN SPACE', because being the first kid on the block to see it I haven't yet had a chance to compare reactions. But I can say personally that as a fan of the show I was enormously satisfied with what the film-makers had done. LOST IN SPACE works. It is able to exist on its own terms as an imaginative and active space adventure, while still catering to fans of the original. I'd go as far as saying that it is the most enjoyable adaptation of a TV show I have yet seen. But once again, this is prejudice on my part - I can't think of many other shows (well, GET SMART was one) which spawned as many catch-phrases in the school playground. Most of them came from Smith, whether it was "The pain, the paaaiin" (usually when filing out for a PE lesson) or anything ending with "Dear boy" (I'm sure also that many teachers must have gotten sick of kids responding "Never fear, Smith is here" whenever they were appointed with some minor classroom task). However, as much as I enjoyed Smith I have to say it was Don who made me laugh the most when I revisited the show a decade or so ago. Humorless Don, who for all appearances seemed to be a walking clockspring of repressed rage, and who could never speak to Smith without snarling ("You're a 24-carat goldbrick!"), was where we could see the reality outside the show intrude into its own peculiar universe; for this was Don-the-actor voicing on behalf of the rest of the Robinson Family with every snarl his extreme vexation about being relegated to the periphery while a camp old ham merrily stole the show right from under them. It makes you think about why Jonathan Harris was one of the few original cast members not to get a walk-on this time around. The series LOST IN SPACE has become something of an institution now. Some may ask why any studio would bother to make an enormously expensive movie of a flimsy low-budget show thirty years later. Fans will reply that it has been a remake that has been too long in coming. The facts, according to the original show, stated that the Robinsons blasted off into space on October 16, 1997. It's a shame the film's producers couldn't have arranged for their debut to coincide with date and bring the whole LOST IN SPACE phenomenon full circle. As it stands, this new telling of that story has wisely reset the launch date to September 30, 2058. I guess we can look forward to Hollywood's next onslaught of television remakes - remakes of remakes, in fact - around about that time. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 20 16:17:11 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!howland.erols.net!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Andy Wright" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 17 Apr 1998 00:01:30 GMT Organization: None Lines: 36 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6h664q$rl4$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer04.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892771290 28324 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12006 Keywords: author=wright X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer04.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11113 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1860 LOST IN SPACE Grade: C (Wait for Video) Directed by Stephen Hopkins Written by Akiva Goldsman Starring: William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Gary Oldman Year of Release: 1998 Rating: PG-13 Capsule Review: The ongoing quest to adapt every single television series ever made to = the big screen (soon, only Manimal and She=92s the Sheriff will remain = untouched) continues with this disappointing attempt at a franchise, in = which a clan of eggheads roam the universe looking for a damned map. = While there are some fun moments in the first half of the film = (including some neat special effects and a nifty attack by some cool = little spider monsters) they soon get swallowed up in a morass of creaky = moralizing and ill-conceived cutesy elements - particularly the = appearance of a badly animated galactic space monkey that=92s so = blatantly designed for future merchandising profits it=92d make an Ewok = hurl. The bulk of the blame for this movie=92s faults can be placed on = the pointed head of screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (inexplicably able to = remain employed after the horrendous Batman & Robin) whose one-liner = intensive script seems to be hastily cobbled together out of old Laffy = Taffy wrappers. Although Lost in Space has its surface pleasures (mostly = supplied by a campily subdued Gary Oldman) and will probably be enjoyed = by kids, it may leave the viewer with some dark and unlovely thoughts = about just how calculated the whole Hollywood blockbuster process has = become - if this is any indication, it could be a long summer at the = movies, folks. Copyright 1998 by The Critic formerly known as Andrew Wright For more insanely biased reviews, check out http://www.seanet.com/~louk/ e-mail louk@seanet.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 20 16:17:46 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: mmapes@indra.com (Marty Mapes) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 17 Apr 1998 23:31:38 GMT Organization: None Lines: 100 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6h8ooq$3fq$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer39.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892855898 3578 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12037 Keywords: author=mapes X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer39.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11101 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1859 Lost In Space A film review by Marty Mapes Copyright 1998 Marty Mapes *1/2 (out of 4) Watching the movie, I vowed to subtract half a star from the review because the filmmakers included a saccharine syrup, cute 'n cuddly, computer-generated monkey. If the monkey died, the movie got an extra half star. Alas, the monkey showed up at the end, unharmed, to the wet sickly sound of gagging and rolling eyeballs. What that means is that LOST IN SPACE actually deserved 2 stars. That's pretty generous, considering the movie's camp lacked any hint of tongue in cheek. When Will Robinson (Jack Johnson) teaches his pet robot about friendship, you are actually supposed to buy it. So why such a seemingly high rating? There are a few reasons that made me unable to throw away the experience with the garbage. First, we saw the movie on opening night of the first day of operation of a brand new theater. The sound and screen kicked ass. Nobody in the country enjoyed the movie as much as my audience did (and I don't necessarily mean that in a good way). Also, there were more than zero scenes where I found myself rooting for the Robinsons, or getting caught up in the movie's tension. I even liked the computer-generated settings. I usually prefer to see models or sets, but the CG was more detailed than I've seen in a lot of movies; it looks like someone spent a little overtime to render some of the futuristic cities. Also, Gary Oldman is never a bad actor, even though he is typecast as a villain. William Hurt isn't too bad either. Neither actor had a great role, but their performances were watchable. And perhaps I shouldn't admit this, but something about the tone and outlook of the movie brought me back to my childhood. There is very little swearing or blood; there is a strong moral message, saccharine though it is; there is a bit of romance (whose culmination after 2 hours is a "real" kiss -- no sex). It felt like one of those Disney movies that I so looked forward to when I was six. Those movies were probably as bad as LOST IN SPACE, but at the time, they were manna from Heaven. That type of moviemaking is a lost art. Now for the bad news. Worst and most unforgivable was the incredibly bad dialogue. It's squeaky-clean, family fun, trying hard to be as hip as Pulp Fiction. "You better hold on to your joystick," is one such line. And when a Robinson is called upon to deliver a line about warp conduit thingamajigs, they inevitably stumble badly enough to embarrass even the lowliest Star Trek ensign. Second worst, and closely related, is the screenplay. The story's exposition takes place at a press conference, which allows the writers to explain what's happening with the least amount of creativity, effort, or interest. Once the story gets going, I do concede a momentary burst of interest once in a while, but on the whole, the situations that arise are silly and contrived. When Gary Oldman easily reprograms Will's pet robot to kill the Robinsons, my friend summed it up perfectly: "he flipped the switch to 'evil.'" Then there's the tone of the movie. The Colorado Daily said the film would have been more interesting if the central character was Will Robinson and not his father John Robinson. Then it could be an adventure movie. They're mostly right, except that Johnson (Will) wasn't a good enough actor to carry it off. Still, that the film has the Robinson patriarch as our hero shows a lack of imagination. Just because a movie is tame enough for kids doesn't mean that we have to bow to a "promise keepers" notion of who's the center of a family. Many quality family films have been made with a non-traditional family structure (FLY AWAY HOME comes to mind) to much better effect. And the politics of the time seem a bit conservative and regressive for a futuristic movie. In STAR WARS, the rebels were the good guys. We were rooting for those who were fighting against the system. In LOST IN SPACE, the rebels are the bad guys, a terrorist force that must be killed, crushed and silenced so that our children may live free. That ominous excuse for violence almost makes me sympathize with the terrorists. Finally, a few specific details deserve criticism. The movie tells us that the setting is the year 2056. Why? Why bother saying what year this is. Just tell us it's the future. I bring it up because the TV series was supposed to take place in 1997. Setting a specific date only dates the movie and guarantees that it won't be timeless (not that this movie was really in the running anyway.). Then there is a scene that shows John Robinson checking one of his controls on a chair that rises about fifteen feet on a pole. This silly waste of money reminded me of Bugs Bunny's barber chair, and only shows that the future is a time when spaceship designers haven't learned a thing about ergonomics. One vaguely redeeming quality is that the end credits succeed where the rest of the film failed: it made LOST IN SPACE look cool. The strong techno beat sampled the cheesiest dialogue and, out of context, made it sound hip. This is overlaid on a cool jumpy credit sequence with interesting distorted clips from the movie. But if that's the best part of the movie, I can't in good conscience recommend it. Still, if you get stuck seeing it, as we did, you might be able to appreciate it if you keep your distance, think of liking bad movies as a child, and bring along your "bad movie bingo" cards. Check out more current movie reviews at http://www.indra.com/~mmapes/ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 27 15:54:16 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: areffd@aol.com (Richard Dickson) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews,rec.arts.movies.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 16 Apr 1998 23:49:47 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Lines: 49 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6h65er$r59$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer21.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892770587 27817 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11992 Keywords: author=dickson X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer21.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:1875 rec.arts.movies.reviews:11215 Directed by Stephen Hopkins Screenplay by Akiva Goldsman Reviewed by Richard F. Dickson WARNING: This review contains spoilers for those who have not yet seen the film. The TV series Lost in Space will, to me, always be the Barney Fife to Star Trek's Andy Griffith. I always preferred the darker, more serious episodes at the beginning than the descent into camp the series eventually became. With this in mind, I really looked forward to the film version. Based on what I had seen, it seemed to have the more sinister tone of those early episodes, especially where Dr. Smith and the robot were concerned. Unfortunately, the film commits the cardinal sin of cinema: not good, not bad, just ... there. Once again, Akiva Goldsman proves that his theory of screenwriting is to throw as many plots in as he possibly can and hope one of them sticks. This failed in Batman and Robin and it fails here. Any one of these plots -- the initial launch and sabotage, the derelict ship, and the planet with the time vortex -- could have been fashioned into a tight, satisfying film, but instead we are forced to watch this story meander around through three terribly undeveloped acts. And he also falls prey to the time travel trap: he allows his hero to save the day by travelling back in time to before the Jupiter II is destroyed. Now, if this is possible, why not just go back in time and prevent Dr. Smith from sabotaging the ship in the first place? Yet it's lazy screenwriting like this that seems to dominate the market these days, writers being asked nothing more than to dream up a skeleton on which to hang a bunch of special effects. Not to mention the fact that this movie seems to be little more than a collection of variations on scenes from much better movies: Star Wars space battles, Blade Runner cityscapes, Alien monsters, etc, etc, etc, none of them done with any of the style or flair of the originals. And beyond the dazzling effects, the movie just sits there. Never once was I involved, excited, or stimulated. Gary Oldman's Dr. Smith is evil without any real motivation, simply there to provide a threat. The kids are all annoying, the parents stoic stereotypes. The only one who seems to be having any fun with his role -- and is therefore fun to watch -- is Matt LeBlanc's Major West. He seems to understand the idea that this is supposed to be an adventure, and does well as the dashing hero, despite the awful romantic dialog he's forced to share with Heather Graham. The sad thing is, this movie will probably be a hit. It has all the eye candy needed, plus a cutting edge techno soundtrack that will probably have the kids going back again and again. But if the series was Barney to Star Trek's Andy Griffith, this movie is definitely an Otis that should have remained locked up. Richard F. Dickson "Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 27 15:54:26 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!newsfeed6.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Andy Wright" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 17 Apr 1998 00:01:24 GMT Organization: None Lines: 36 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6h664k$rl3$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer04.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892771284 28323 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12006 Keywords: author=wright X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer04.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11211 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1873 LOST IN SPACE Grade: C (Wait for Video) Directed by Stephen Hopkins Written by Akiva Goldsman Starring: William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Gary Oldman Year of Release: 1998 Rating: PG-13 Capsule Review: The ongoing quest to adapt every single television series ever made to = the big screen (soon, only Manimal and She=92s the Sheriff will remain = untouched) continues with this disappointing attempt at a franchise, in = which a clan of eggheads roam the universe looking for a damned map. = While there are some fun moments in the first half of the film = (including some neat special effects and a nifty attack by some cool = little spider monsters) they soon get swallowed up in a morass of creaky = moralizing and ill-conceived cutesy elements - particularly the = appearance of a badly animated galactic space monkey that=92s so = blatantly designed for future merchandising profits it=92d make an Ewok = hurl. The bulk of the blame for this movie=92s faults can be placed on = the pointed head of screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (inexplicably able to = remain employed after the horrendous Batman & Robin) whose one-liner = intensive script seems to be hastily cobbled together out of old Laffy = Taffy wrappers. Although Lost in Space has its surface pleasures (mostly = supplied by a campily subdued Gary Oldman) and will probably be enjoyed = by kids, it may leave the viewer with some dark and unlovely thoughts = about just how calculated the whole Hollywood blockbuster process has = become - if this is any indication, it could be a long summer at the = movies, folks. Copyright 1998 by The Critic formerly known as Andrew Wright For more insanely biased reviews, check out http://www.seanet.com/~louk/ e-mail louk@seanet.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 27 15:54:29 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!newsfeed6.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!howland.erols.net!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Andy Wright" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 17 Apr 1998 00:01:30 GMT Organization: None Lines: 36 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6h664q$rl4$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer04.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892771290 28324 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12006 Keywords: author=wright X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer04.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11213 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1874 LOST IN SPACE Grade: C (Wait for Video) Directed by Stephen Hopkins Written by Akiva Goldsman Starring: William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Gary Oldman Year of Release: 1998 Rating: PG-13 Capsule Review: The ongoing quest to adapt every single television series ever made to = the big screen (soon, only Manimal and She=92s the Sheriff will remain = untouched) continues with this disappointing attempt at a franchise, in = which a clan of eggheads roam the universe looking for a damned map. = While there are some fun moments in the first half of the film = (including some neat special effects and a nifty attack by some cool = little spider monsters) they soon get swallowed up in a morass of creaky = moralizing and ill-conceived cutesy elements - particularly the = appearance of a badly animated galactic space monkey that=92s so = blatantly designed for future merchandising profits it=92d make an Ewok = hurl. The bulk of the blame for this movie=92s faults can be placed on = the pointed head of screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (inexplicably able to = remain employed after the horrendous Batman & Robin) whose one-liner = intensive script seems to be hastily cobbled together out of old Laffy = Taffy wrappers. Although Lost in Space has its surface pleasures (mostly = supplied by a campily subdued Gary Oldman) and will probably be enjoyed = by kids, it may leave the viewer with some dark and unlovely thoughts = about just how calculated the whole Hollywood blockbuster process has = become - if this is any indication, it could be a long summer at the = movies, folks. Copyright 1998 by The Critic formerly known as Andrew Wright For more insanely biased reviews, check out http://www.seanet.com/~louk/ e-mail louk@seanet.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 27 15:54:35 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Steve Rhodes Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 17 Apr 1998 23:08:31 GMT Organization: Internet Reviews Lines: 88 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6h8ndf$2e5$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer33.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892854511 2501 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12012 Keywords: author=rhodes X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer33.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11161 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1870 LOST IN SPACE A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ** "How can we bring civilization to the stars if we can't remain civilized?" Maureen rhetorically asks her husband John after another in their unending series of marital tiffs. Welcome to yet another dysfunctional film family, the Robinsons. From Stephen Hopkins, the director of PREDATOR 2 and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5, and Akiva Goldsman, the writer of BATMAN FOREVER and BATMAN & ROBIN, we have a deadly serious treatment of a classic television series that delighted solely on the charm of its goofy props and silly sentences. ("That does not compute.") The cinematic version of LOST IN SPACE seems to be a didactic Franz Kafka space story written for older children. So somber in tone, you'll swear this must be a message movie, but looking into the story's thoughts is like staring into a black hole. Or as the evil Dr. Smith, played without any life or charm by Gary Oldman, says, "Give my regards to oblivion." The head of the Robinson household is the brooding father, John, played passionlessly by William Hurt. His crime is that he's been spending too much time at the office and has missed his son's science fair again this year. In the only notable casting in the film, Jack Johnson plays the intelligent and sweet 10-year-old, Will, who controls the robot. The general rule for the story is that the characters' brainpower is inversely proportional to their ages. The talented Mimi Rogers, who used to get demanding roles but now gets nothing substantial, plays the wife, Maureen. She keeps her family together by yelling occasionally at her inert husband. As the older daughter Judy, Lacey Chabert, who was the sex kitten in BOOGIE NIGHTS, gives a cold performance that only comes alive the few times she manages to smile. The middle child, Penny (Lacey Chabert), has been brought home three nights in a row by security. In a plot that is either confusing or non-existent - you can choose - the movie limps along between some dazzling but too darkly lit special effects. With all the money they spent, it's too bad they couldn't have afforded a few more light bulbs. But with 750 special effects, as the press notes claim, it is easy to ignore the lack of a script and concentrate on the visuals. (And on the aforementioned excellent piece of acting in the central role of the boy.) The body of the movie has the captain, Don West (Matt LeBlanc), "taking the family camper on an interstellar picnic." Once out in space, the family ends up going through the solar flares of the sun which forces them to engage their hyperdrive. Landing at a random place and time in the future, they get to fight giant spiders like, but not nearly as believable as, the insects in STARSHIP TROOPERS. There is a great scene for kids in which Will uses a cool looking holographic interface to battle the bugs remotely. The main failing in the picture is not the pathetic script but instead is the way they blow it with the robot. The endearing hunk of junk of the original television series starts off life in the new LOST IN SPACE as a killer mechanical beast, looking like something straight out of ROBOCOP. "Destroy Robinson family!" the robot says, pointing his blasters at them. Although the family is saved at the last minute by Will, the new robot never achieves the charm of the old. There is however, a lovable, yellow alien monkey with big ears in LOST IN SPACE to partially make up for it. "There's a lot of space out there to get lost in," John says in the beginning. And the movie gets as lost as the family. The picture's morose ending includes equal mixtures of childhood angst, dark ruminations on the effects of absent fathers, and an ugly monster lifted from ALIENS. After playing with our heartstrings, the writer gives us a quick redemption scene and a pointer to LOST IN SPACE 2. Since they didn't have enough ideas for the first one, let's hope they change their minds and lose the idea of a sequel. LOST IN SPACE runs too long at 2:10. It is rated PG-13 for profanity, science fiction violence, and a scary monster and would be fine for kids around nine and up. My son Jeffrey, age 9, gave it **** and said he absolutely loved the movie because of all of its space stuff. His only complaint was that he didn't like the monster, but he did like the imaginative way they killed him. On the other hand, his buddies, Matthew, Nickolas, and Eliot, age 9, all gave the picture no stars whatsoever. Eliot called it "junk," and Nickolas and Matthew complained that it didn't have a story or a plot. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 27 15:54:39 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!howland.erols.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Jason Overbeck Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 17 Apr 1998 23:51:13 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Lines: 24 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6h8pth$52q$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer18.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892857073 5210 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12045 Keywords: author=overbeck X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer18.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11184 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1871 LOST IN SPACE 1/2 of **** grade is F I never saw the TV show LOST IN SPACE and from what I hear I didn't miss much. I was quite impressed with the cast list as the film began, images of them in other much better films race through my head. To say that this is a dumb action film is too kind to this utterly worthless trash. This is one of the years worst films. The plot is just an excuse for a series of heartless and mindless effect shots, notice I didn't say 'special' because nothing in this film is. The actors run looking bored and probably having paychecks on the mind. What are these actors doing in this film?! William Hurt the talented star of Broadcast News, Heather Graham of Drugstore Cowboy and Boogie Nights, Gary Oldman from Sid And Nancy plus Professional, these are talented actors. There is no point in describing the plot because the film hardly bothers. This is a film about Family, pilot and badguy stuck in space and a bunch of effects. Watching this reminded me of last years STARSHIP TROOPERS or this years Dark City, which not many saw, and how a film with inteligence and/or imagination can make a fun and great film. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue May 5 14:10:47 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!howland.erols.net!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Berge Garabedian" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 30 Apr 1998 05:16:27 GMT Organization: None Lines: 84 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6i91fb$1v0$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: NNTP-Posting-Host: homer26.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 893913387 2016 (None) 140.142.64.5 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12251 Keywords: author=garabedian X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer26.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11469 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1891 LOST IN SPACE RATING: 7 / 10 --> Good movie Review Date: April 10, 1998 Director: Stephen Hopkins Writer: Akiva Goldsman Producers: Carla Fry, Akiva Goldsman, Stephen Hopkins, Mark W. Koch Actors: William Hurt as John Robinson Mimi Rogers as Maureen Robinson Matt LeBlanc as Don West Heather Graham as Judy Robinson Garry Oldman as Dr. Smith Genre: Science-Fiction Year of Release: 1998 This film is based on the campy TV show from the 1960's under the same appellation. Mind you, most people (including yours truly) who will see this movie will not have seen any episodes from the original series. The movie is really a stand alone in that regard. The family Robinson...lost in space. PLOT: Set in the year 2058, the family Robinson is chosen to sail out into space in search of other planets that might contain the natural resources Earth needs in order to survive its future. A colonization process, if you will. They are joined by able pilot West (LeBlanc), and evil uninvited stowaway (Oldman), who does not want to see the trip conclude on a successful tip. Eventually, their trek goes awry, and all are "lost in space". "How do get back to Earth?" is the question that infests the rest of this sci-fi epic. CRITIQUE: This film reminded me a lot of THE FIFTH ELEMENT (6.5/10) from the summer of 1997. It's a film with a lot of flash, but very little actual substance. Admittedly, there isn't an annoying character like Chris Tucker from the other film, but this film does run a little too long, and did lose me in regards to its complex time-travel / multi-dimensional story line. Having said that, the special effects in this movie were amazing, and the overall look and feel were also way above average. You really felt like you were in the future, and riding through space with these poor souls. Unfortunately for this chosen family, their 10-year old son is the smartest one in the group, and the father is too wrapped up in his work to notice the rest of his family (Ever heard that one before? Yawn!). The acting is OK, and I was especially surprised at the solid performance by TV Friend's Matt LeBlanc who shows us all that he's definitely more than just a pretty face. On the down side, the family riff-raff that cuts through most of the picture is lame and time-consuming (even though we gotta give them credit for "trying" to develop characters in a sci-fi pic), the story line is hard to follow, the evil character in the movie actually tells people that he's "evil", and the movie goes on for about 20 minutes too long. On the slick side, many of the special effects are really cool (the sequence in which the family is "paralyzed" during the hyper-drive is awesome, and the animated monkey that joins the family halfway through the flic is mucho cool), the credit presentation at the end of the film is slamming, and the adventures that they fall into are somewhat thrilling (I will also admit that "somehow" they got me to semi-tear up near the conclusion of this picture....very odd.....). Overall, if you're a big sci-fi fan, check this movie out for the special effects and challenging narrative, and if you're not, I would still suggest seeing this movie, but then you could probably wait until it comes out on video so that you forward past some of the boring parts. Little Known Facts: This film will always be remembered as the movie that knocked TITANIC (7/10) out of the top spot at the box-office after 15 straight weeks at number one. Garry Oldman is British, and was once married to Uma Thurman for about six months. Mimi Rogers was Tom Cruise's first wife. Visit JoBlo's Movie Reviews @ http://www.microtec.net/~drsuess/ © 1998 Berge Garabedian From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri May 8 13:08:22 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!wn3feed!135.173.83.25!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!140.142.64.3!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Curtis Edmonds Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 8 May 1998 05:12:58 GMT Organization: Hollywood Stock Brokerage & Resource Lines: 86 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6iu48q$ot$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer13.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 894604378 797 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12356 Keywords: author=edmonds X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer13.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11511 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1896 by Curtis Edmonds -- blueduck@hsbr.org It wasn't all that long ago, you'll remember, when they announced the casting for The Bonfire of the Vanities. Those of us who were fans of the Tom Wolfe novel cringed: Tom Hanks as Sherman McCoy? It was clear to me, at least, that William Hurt was the best choice -- the only logical choice -- to play the part of the antihero stockbroker. Fortunately, the casting gods were on watch when Hurt was cast in the Macon Leary part in The Accidental Tourist, two years prior. I mention this to say that casting is hard. I realize that. But it doesn't take a casting god to see that Lost in Space would be a much, much better movie with someone else as Professor Robinson instead of William Hurt, someone who wasn't as good of an actor, someone who could contribute to the movie's high-camp style. Lost in Space is not a William Hurt movie, it's a Matt LeBlanc movie -- nonserious and superficial. By casting the serious and laconic Hurt in the lead, the movie makers do Hurt and themselves a disservice. Hurt is not the only thing wrong with Lost in Space, but he's a good starting point. I can see William Hurt in an intelligent, well scripted movie about space travel -- like Contact, let's say. Unfortunately, that's not what Lost in Space is. This is a strictly for fun movie -- a silly, over-the-top sci-fi effects fest, with very little in the way of plot or storyline or coherence. The movie is at its best when it's at its dippiest -- when the crew is fighting evil mechanical spiders or hurtling through hyperspace. Most of the performances add to the overall silliness: Lacy Chabert as a pouting teenager, LeBlanc as the gung-ho Tom Cruise wannabe fighter pilot, Gary Oldman as the cowardly-yet-evil Dr. Smith. All these people are guilty of overacting, yes, but at least they've picked a movie where overacting is an asset rather than a problem. LeBlanc is a great deal more entertaining in his meaty part than anyone had a right to expect, and Oldman is creepily effective as Dr. Smith. (The other two main actors, Mimi Rogers and the luminous Heather Graham, have characters that are so underwritten that they don't get a chance to overact.) The problem with Lost in Space is that it's not consistenly silly. The plot is simple enough: Robinson family gets lost in space and encounters wacky adventures. But apparently the scriptwriter felt guilty about writing such silliness and decided to add some depth -- exploring the relationship of Hurt's Professor Robinson character to his dead father and brilliant son. There's entirely too much time spent on these irrelevant subplots and not enough time on action and wackiness. And the action and wackiness sort of bog down in the last reel as it is, as the plot throws in some meaningless mumbo-jumbo about time travel. The last thing we see in Lost in Space (before the horrid seizure-inducing end credits, the worst thing about the movie) is the image of eight-year old Will Robinson on the bridge of the Jupiter 2 saying, "Cool." Lost in Space works when it's cool, when it speaks to the inner eight-year-old in all of us that likes explosions and mechanical spiders and eye candy. I know it sounds weird to be criticizing a movie for not being completely superficial and mindless, but there you go. Lost in Space is Dumb, but it should be Dumber. Rating: B- Stephen Graham wrote: > >thanks -- btw, did you get my review of Lost in Space? It wasn't ever > >posted, and I've been having some email problems... > > Don't recall seeing it but I'll have to check my index. > > Stephen -- Curtis Edmonds blueduck@hsbr.org The Hollywood Stock Brokerage and Resource Your Guide to the Hollywood Stock Exchange http://www.hsbr.org/brokers/blueduck/ "Are you kidding? No jury in the world would convict a baby for murder. Well, maybe Texas." -- Chief Clancy Wiggum From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon May 11 14:36:47 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!masternews.telia.net!newsfeed1.swip.net!news-pen-1.sprintlink.net!news-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!wn3feed!135.173.83.25!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!140.142.64.3!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: agapow@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (p-m agapow) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 9 May 1998 16:38:50 GMT Organization: Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Biologists Lines: 90 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <6j20qq$75f$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer35.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 894731930 7343 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12377 Keywords: author=agapow X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer35.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11531 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1900 # [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 (agapow@computer.org), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse "There is no adventure, there is no romance, there is only trouble and desire." From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Aug 10 13:23:06 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news-backup-east.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Richard Scheib" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 5 Aug 1998 05:12:59 GMT Organization: None Lines: 129 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6q8pkr$1892$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer12.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 902293979 41250 (None) 140.142.17.35 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #13748 Keywords: author=scheib X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer12.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:12941 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2080 Lost in Space USA. 1998. Director - Stephen Hopkins, Screenplay - Akiva Goldsman, Producers - Goldsman, Hopkins, Carla Fry & Mark W. Koch, Photography - Peter Levy, Music - Bruce Broughton, Visual Effects Supervisor - Angus Bickerton, Visual Effects - Cinesite Europe (Supervisor - Jonathan Privett), The Computer Film Co, The Film Factory at VTR, Framestore & The Magic Camera Co (Supervisor - Steven Begg), Creature Effects - Jim Henson’s Creature Workshop (Creature Supervisor - Karen Halliwell & John Stephenson, Digital Effects Supervisor - Christian Hogue, Electronics Supervisor - Julian Manning), Special Effects Supervisor - Nick Allder, Production Design - Norman Garwood, Supervising Art Director - Keith Pain. Production Company - Prelude Pictures/Irwin Allen Productions. William Hurt (Professor John Robinson), Matt LeBlanc (Major Don West), Jack Johnson (Will Robinson), Gary Oldman (Dr Zachary Smith), Heather Graham (Dr Judy Robinson), Lacey Chabert (Penny Robinson), Mimi Rogers (Dr Maureen Robinson), Jared Harris (Older Will) Plot: The Robinson family are about to be launched aboard the Jupiter Mission to set up a hyperspatial gate on the planet Alpha Prime to relieve strained environmental resources on Earth. But the family is divided by dysfunctionality from within with the two youngest children Will and Penny resenting their father’s lack of attention to them. Meanwhile a terrorist organization has ordered Dr Zachary Smith to sneak aboard and sabotage the mission and then abandoned him for dead as it is launched. As Smith and the Robinsons struggle to stop the robot Smith has programmed to go amok, they are forced to engage the hyperdrive to stop the ship going into the sun, causing them to emerge at a point where they are lost in space. And so the current fad for big-screen, big-budget remakes of 1960s tv series continues, with `Lost in Space' being the latest to receive the all-star treatment. It has been a massive hit, although as with much recent genre product (`Godzilla', `The Postman', `Sphere') has receive a middling response if not outright slamming from the critics. The critical response in this case is interesting with reviewers either tending to be condescendingly praiseworthy ("nice effects, just switch the brain off") or negative for a variety of reasons that seem to hover around something to do with the film's failure to be faithful to the original series. (The most bizarre review was the wholly hostile one in the New Zealand Listener which interpreted the costumes and the promotional LS logo as neo-Nazi and the relationship between Will and Dr Smith as paedophile). But all the talk about faithfulness to the original series is founded on the misapprehension that the original series was some classic - which it isn't. When it began in 1965, the series was a typical space opera - `Flash Gordon' or some copy of a 1950s juvenile tv serial like `Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers' - recast for the Space Age. But it was poor sf, shockingly ignorant of basic science (a basic trademark of any Irwin Allen sf series) and lacked any conceptual depth other than featuring a monster or space cowboy of the week. With the second season and the move into colour, the camp element took over with Jonathan Harris, supported by Will and the robot, becoming the real star of the show, playing to the camera as broadly as possible. It is the camp silliness and the kitsch appeal of the show's corniness today that has made the series a cult item. Certainly its popularity in reruns is for reasons that have almost nothing to do with sf. The movie has been criticized for its lack of humour, in taking a much grittier, more realistic approach and for having abandoned the style of the series. Which, if any of the critics really sat down and examined what they were saying, is a fatuous statement - any faithful approach would surely have left the film emerging as some science-fictional cousin to `The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert'. There was the question of which way the film would go. One had the dreadful feeling that it would turn out something like `The Brady Bunch Movie' with the 1960s po-facedness put through the brutally sarcastic wringer of 1990s deconstruction. And the presence, as both scripter and producer, of Akiva Goldsman who wrote the last two `Batman' sequels - which should in any book have deemed him unemployable in the industry again - did not exactly inspire confidence. At most the trailer gave the indication it would be all special effects flash and a no-brain "sci-fi" script. But the surprise is that `Lost in Space' is actually a halfway reasonable effort. It remains quite faithful to the series basic mythology while refashioning it into a scenario where real world temperaments intrude upon the absurd ideal of the perfect nuclear family that the 1960s series held up. Now the Robinsons are a dysfunctional family - Penny (in an annoyingly whiny performance from Lacey Chabert) is a cynical punked-out brat and Will an ignored child prodigy who only wants his father to spend some time with him; the women no longer stand about and do the cooking while the men go adventuring but are all technically competent and hold doctorates; West goes from the handsome hero to a cocksure macho jerk and in comes a good deal of overt sexual banter between he and Judy; we even get to see Smith actually performing a medical operation and Don West being the pilot which we never did in the series. The basic design of the robot is retained but at the same time it rebuilt into a heavily armoured fighting machine. There are a number of other touches that only fans of the original would pick up - Penny gets a new CGI version of her old space-monkey; or how Gary Oldman does a quite accurate mimicry of the craven and loquacious character that Jonathan Harris created and naturally gets to entangle Will into his schemes while trotting out classic Smith-isms like "Never fear, Smith is here." And of course the minor parts are filled with cameos by members of the original cast - Angela Lockhart (the mother in the series) is the holographic president whose image Will messes about with at the start; Marta Kristen (Judy in the series) and Angela Cartwright (Penny in the series) are reporters at the press conference; and Mark Goddard (Don West in the series) is the general who assigns the new Don West to the mission. Just seeing how the film has reconstructed the familiar characters and icons of the original makes it quite intriguing. Equally so the film is filled with some breath-taking effects sequence which are conducted at an immensely exciting pace. The venture into the abandoned Proteus is a marvellously suspense-fraught set-piece. The sheer kinesis of the film carries it but the downside is that while the film sets itself up well, its last quarter act falls apart. Goldsman's time-travel plot is far too ambitious for the hurtlingly-paced space opera the film is trying to be. And further it seems only half a plot which leaves all sorts of questions and loopholes hanging - how does the future with the elder Will still remain extant instead of being edited out once the past is changed ? Or exactly what is the Proteus mission meant to be doing - did The Jupiter II travel through time or not and, if so, why didn't the Proteus mission? And the climactic dive through the planet's core is geologically preposterous. Nevertheless for the most part the film manages to divert one's attention well with its dark and savvy reworking of the series mythology and its hurtling array of effects bravado - it's not a bad start for what promises to be an ongoing series. Intriguing piece of trivia:- Did you know that the release of the film comes one year after the date the series set as the year of the Jupiter 2's launch ? Reviewed by Richard Scheib ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Aug 10 13:25:52 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!news.solace.mh.se!news.ecn.ou.edu!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!wn4feed!worldnet.att.net!140.142.64.3!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Jerry Bosch" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Reviews: Dark Impact (1998), Armageddon (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 23 Jul 1998 05:03:01 GMT Organization: http://www.supernews.com, The World's Usenet: Discussions Start Here Lines: 94 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6p6g65$110c$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer24.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 901170182 33804 (None) 140.142.17.35 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #13487 Keywords: author=bosch X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer24.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:12721 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2055 THE DEEP IMPACT OF ARMAGEDDON - RANDOM THOUGHTS Warning: spoilers ahead. It is summer and the sky is falling. Hollywood has been deeply impacted and it has met the celestial army head on. When space shuttles are launched from Cape Canaveral hardly anything ever goes wrong but when they are launched from Hollywood we can expect lots of trouble because trouble is what summer blockbusters are about. Impending doom is not enough; you must deliver doom, as in Deep Impact; or experience near doom in the process of avoiding it, as in Armageddon. Deep Impact and Armageddon use different approaches to the problem of delivering disaster. If you are going to have Armageddon, then you must (a) have a flawed plan to avoid it and (b) limit Armageddon to less than Armageddon, since total oblivion is much too bleak for summer fare. That is the case with Deep Impact, which delivers a watered down version of Armageddon. On the other hand, if you are going to avoid Armageddon altogether, as is the case with Armageddon, you must (a) satisfy the disaster expectations with shallow impacts and (b) dedicate yourself to the proposition that every solution has a problem. The world finally survives, but the devil is in saving it. If disbelief is the coin of admission, Armageddon comes at a higher price. Deep Impact can afford to be realistic, because it plans to deliver the goods (Armageddon). Armageddon, however, after getting the minidisasters out the way, must strain credulity to the limit and well beyond in terms of tactical crises as a substitute for Armageddon. In Armageddon you get not one digital countdown but two. Taking both to the last second would have been in terrible taste, so the blue and the green wires, or the red and the yellow or whatever the colors, are cut with 3 seconds to spare in the first case. That significant sacrifice is the price that the screenwriters paid for the indulgence of avoiding the end of the world in the second case by the slim margin of just one second, which is the accepted standard. Both films are curiously faithful to the notion of a sacrificial lamb. I would be loath to accuse Christ of setting a bad precedent, but perhaps out of respect Hollywood refused to spare the world without the sacrifice of a hero. The fact that Hollywood felt compelled to put Christian formula ahead of Hollywood formula may be credibly used by the religious crowd as another example of the deep stronghold of the value-trader ethic in our culture. As a result we have two perfectly good actors, Robert Duvall and Bruce Willis going down in a style completely foreign to the image of the indestructible, infallible summer superhero. Any film in which humanity is bracing itself for imminent death will become a corn field at some point. The poignant good byes in Deep Impact involve characters that we either don’t know or care little for. As a result the sentimental farewells are maudlin and slightly annoying. By contrast, the corresponding scenes in Armageddon are integrated in the story. For the most part they are effective and well acted. In Deep Impact Robert Duvall delivers the competent job that is expected from a veteran of his caliber. Tea Leoni played her part too well for her own good. She was transparent: we saw the character and not the actress, which is good, and she played without Pacino hysterics or Nicholson histrionics, which should also be good. However, Hollywood (read audiences) does not reward that kind of integrity. The character was authentic and unfortunately, as such, not terribly likeable and a little bit dull. Ron Eldard was well behaved but lacked the gravity that is expected from a mission commander. Perhaps it is his voice, or it may be that asking him and us to make the transition from tubal imebecility to wide-screen rocket science is more than he and we could handle. In Armageddon, Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck, neither of which aspire to make us forget Maurice Evans, communicated surprisingly well the dimensions that should surface when substantial men of action face moral dilemmas. The inevitable father-daughter conflict was dead serious business in Deep Impact. In Armageddon it fluctuated between comedy relief and real emotion. This was just one case of the tongue-in-cheek approach with which Armageddon mollified the core of conflict which was none the less communicated in full measure. Steve Buscemi and Bob Thornton contributed strong performances in Armageddon. Deep Impact’s supporting cast was star studded, some of them burned out and others still (elsewhere) incandescent: Vanessa “The Van” Redgrave, Maximilian Schell, Morgan Freeman, James Cromwell. Good actors with little to do but stay ahead of their creditors or advance the custodial accounts as the case may be. The Oscar however goes to MSNBC, who steals the show with its unseen but pervasive presence. Shades of Rebecca. The chances that any of my readers may let the summer pass without seeing either or both of these films are less than the chances of an asteroid hit on Earth. But if by force of the gravity of unusual circumstances you may find yourself so impacted, don’t go into a deep depression; it is not the end of the world . Raise your arms and head on to the next show. After all, the films are likely to re-orbit. Am I full of rocket exhaust? Yell at me at gp14@usa.net. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Aug 20 12:43:49 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!howland.erols.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "C.J HILL" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 20 Aug 1998 01:16:31 GMT Organization: University of Washington Lines: 38 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6rftdf$jf4$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer07.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 903575791 19940 (None) 140.142.17.38 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #13877 Keywords: author=hill X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer07.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:13106 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2091 Lost In Space (PG) UK Review. Lost In Space is the Hollywood remake of the terrible, black and white series. Unfortunately the lessons learnt over the years on how to improve on the past have clearly not been adhered to. The reasons for my conclusions to this are as following. First there's the plot. A modern trend nowadays seems to favour great fx in favour of a well thought out and well acted story. This is the case here. The story is that Earth's resources are almost depleted and the Robinsons venture off across the galaxy in search of a planet that's been found to be identical to ours. The mission is sabotaged courtesy of Gary Oldman and the family, along with Oldman who was trapped onboard the ship as he carried out his plan, find themselves lost in space. Ahem. How many times have we had the "Futuristic Earth out of resources" plot. Too many, that's how many. Next, the acting. With the exception of Mr Oldman, who's excellent skills are clearly wasted in this tosh and nonsense, the acting is dreadful. Next up is the awful script to accompany the bad acting. It's lifeless, dull and does not inspire any interest or empathy for any of the characters. Finally all the action and some other scenes as well are ripped directly out of other great sci-fi classics. Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, E.T, Blade Runner and even Aliens come under the hammer. So, is there any reason to see Lost In Space? Well, one. The special effects. They are fantastic. These will induce compulsory drooling. I do not expect to see these bettered until next year, when, no doubt they will. To sum up, Lost In Space is terrible. It does not have one original idea of it's own and even having big names in the cast has not helped it one bit. Take a tissue for your drool and an incredibly open mind for the rest. Utter tosh. 2/10 Review by Chris Hill. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Oct 15 15:09:50 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!news.solace.mh.se!news.xinit.se!news.xinit.se!newsfeed5.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!news-nyc.telia.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Mark O'Hara" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 9 Oct 1998 05:40:26 GMT Organization: None Lines: 36 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6vk7ka$tmi$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer34.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 907911626 30418 (None) 140.142.17.40 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #14676 Keywords: author=o'hara X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer34.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:13879 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2123 Lost in Space (1998) Ever since my wife bought me a toy "B-9" Robot for our anniversary, I had wanted to see the newest incarnation of "Lost in Space." Aside from the characters, it's not much like the campy 60's series. (Of course, I didn't exactly recognize the campiness at the time; I was too busy hiding my eyes during the alien scenes. "Lost in Space" was the only TV show scarier than the monster scenes in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"!) Following the premise of the series occupied much of the running time. But it's a good premise: the Robinson family's animation is suspended while the Jupiter 2 cruises to a planet ten years away. Their journey is interrupted by a 90's version of B-9 -- only slicker, butch; but the booming voice is the same. Anyway, the adventures the family encounters after they are lost are worth watching: mostly smooth computer-generated critters, and a version of the vile Doctor Smith that made me and my 12 year-old son shiver. (No, I'm still not de-sensitized to the horror that monsters are supposed to instill!) Though I like William Hurt immensely (no one could have played the reluctant travel writer in "The Accidental Tourist" better), he is miscast as John Robinson. OK -- the head of the family is a heady scientist, but Hurt I can't see as action hero. The rest of the cast is solid -- the ubiquitous Gary Oldman (is he British, or what?) is eminently dislikable -- though not nearly as goofy as his television counterpart. Get ready for another franchise. "Lost in Space" is entertaining. I'd pay to see a sequel, especially with the chance it might have just a shade more camp and self-reflexive humor. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Oct 15 15:10:22 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!cyclone.news.idirect.com!island.idirect.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!192.220.250.21!netnews1.nw.verio.net!netnews.nwnet.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Chuck Dowling Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 11 Oct 1998 19:28:35 GMT Organization: None Lines: 91 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6vr0t3$1dok$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer12.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 908134115 46868 (None) 140.142.17.38 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #14707 Keywords: author=dowling X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer12.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:13898 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2126 Lost in Space (1998) **1/2 out of ***** Cast: Gary Oldman, William Hurt, Matt LeBlanc, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, Lacey Chabert, Jack Johnson, and cameos from some of the stars of the TV series. Written by: Akiva Goldsman Directed by: Stephen Hopkins Running Time: 130 minutes Akiva Goldsman, the writer and producer of Lost in Space is the same person who joined forces with that hideous monster Joel Schumacher to help obliterate the Batman franchise. Now Goldsman has left Schumacher behind, looking to destroy some other beloved series. Thankfully, he picked one that wasn't so established to begin with. I remember watching the TV series Lost in Space as a kid. It was a fairly entertaining show as far as cheesy sci-fi goes, but I haven't seen a frame of it since I was oh, six years old. So the fact that it's based on something I watched as a kid had no influence on my opinion whatsoever. It holds no special place in my heart or anything like that. The year is 2058. Earth has almost exhausted all of it's natural resources and now the Robinson family, led by brilliant scientist John Robinson (William Hurt), venture out into the galaxy to find new resources for our planet. Now two things: this is only 60 years in the future? Goldsman's a little too ambitious there if you ask me. We can't even control a remote-controlled car on Mars for more than two days. We're supposed to be space travelling to the farthest reaches of the galaxy with ease in the next 60 years? And also, you want to know why our natural resources are almost exhausted? Look no farther than all the spaceship cars and orbiting space stations we've built. So humans have used up all of our natural resources to build ships to help us look for more natural resources? Anyway, it seems we're in some sort of civil war with ourselves over the space exploration stuff. A faction of terrorists hope to sabotage the mission by destroying the Robinson family and their spacecraft. The evil Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman, in full bad guy mode) sneaks on board to do just that, but is knocked unconscious before the launch. The ship launches, mayhem ensues, and to make a long story short... Dr. Smith, the Robinson family, and their pilot Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc) end up millions of miles from home. Now they're lost in space, get it? What's fun about Lost in Space is seeing how many plots from other (and better) sci-fi movies and TV shows you can spot. Look, it's the crash of the Enterprise from Star Trek:Generations! Now it's the Death Star battle scene from Return of the Jedi! Now it's The Black Hole! Now it's Star Trek:The Motion Picture! Now it's... well you get the idea. Actually most of the second half of the film is nothing but a redressed version of the second half of Star Trek:Generations. There's hardly one original concept in the whole picture. Goldsman has unfortunately brought along his trusty one-liner book, and it's amazing that he had any left over after "Batman and Robin". And I can't say this enough... I hate one-liners! What makes it even worse is that, the characters are using puns and phrases from NOW, surely by 2058 they'd be considered obsolete. If a teenager today was saying lines from the 1930s like "She's the cat's meow" or "23-skidoo" they'd be beaten to a bloody pulp. Watching "Lost in Space" is a lot like watching the film portions of some big interactive ride at Epcot or Universal Studios. If I was six years old again, I'm sure that I'd think the new version of Lost in Space was great stuff. And six year olds seem to be it's target audience, what with the silly brother-sister spats and cute little aliens and all. It's a marketing bonanza, with action figures and Happy Meals clearly right around the corner. The performances by the men in the film are good, but the female characters are all sadly wasted. And the youngest daughter Penny (Lacey Chabert) makes me uncomfortable because I'm not sure what to say about her. She could either be six years old or eighteen years old. The effects are good for the most part, although a couple do look really phony and therefore unconvincing. The best thing about the whole film is what we're treated to as the closing credits roll. We get a techno version of the old TV show's theme. That almost made it all worthwhile. Almost. [PG-13] The Jacksonville Film Journal -- Film Reviews by Chuck Dowling URL: http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Email: chuckd21@leading.net © 1995-1998 of The Jacksonville Film Journal. No reviews may be reprinted without permission. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Nov 2 16:32:57 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-stkh.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!sol.no!uninett.no!howland.erols.net!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Joe Chamberlain" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 19 Oct 1998 04:34:53 GMT Organization: The Movie Guy Lines: 69 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <70efhd$1h2a$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer37.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 908771693 50250 (None) 140.142.17.39 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #14897 Keywords: author=chamberlain X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer37.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:14078 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2134 Lost In Space A review by Joe Chamberlain Starring Gary Oldman; William Hurt; Matt LeBlanc & Mimi Rogers Lost In Space is the updated remake of the campy 1960's television program. While it certainly is anything but campy, it is a worthy successor to the original series. Unlike the series, the film version of Lost In Space is big budget with top notch special effects. None of the aliens made from tinfoil that were so common from the series. Lost In Space boasts an A-level cast including Gary Oldman as the evil Dr. Smith, William Hurt as Professor John Robinson and Matt LeBlanc as Major Don West. Unlike TV show remakes from recent years, Mission: Impossible comes to mind, Lost In Space doesn't turn familiar characters into something that you don't expect. The good guys from the series are still good and the bad guy, namely Dr. Smith, is still bad. Although, if I had one complaint about the movie it would be with the character of Dr. Smith. While Gary Oldman does do a good job, the character of Smith is a little too nasty, although I suppose times change and the bad guys have to get a little more bad. Maybe part of my problem with Dr. Smith was that Jonathan Harris wasn't playing him. Harris was the main reason to watch the series and nobody, not even Gary Oldman, could properly replace him as Dr. Smith. The same can not be said for the other characters in the film, all of the current actors more than adequately filled the rolls of their 1960's counterparts. Lost In Space, in addition to keeping to the story line of the series also paid homage to it in other ways. These included cameos from some of the original stars of the TV series; Dick Tufeld, who was the voice of the Robot in the series also voices the Robot in the film. You should also pay special attention to the booster rocket that carries the updated Jupiter 2 from its launch pad on Earth. As for plot, it is the mid 21st Century and Earth is doomed to extinction from the pollution and abuse of the past centuries. John Robinson and his family are chosen to go to a new planet and ready it for colonization from the people of Earth. Something goes horribly wrong on the Robinson's journey. A terrorist stowaway, Dr. Smith, sabotages the mission and the whole bunch of them find themselves lost in some uncharted region of space. This new region of space is not without its dangers, including large killer spiders and some sort of phenomenon which seems to be affecting time itself. As I mentioned, the main reason to watch the television series was for Dr. Smith. While Gary Oldman's Smith can't compare to the original, he is still the most fun to watch. While his portrayal of Dr. Smith is far more evil than the TV version, the film version of Smith still takes the same joy at being bad. You have to love somebody that takes such pride in their work. As for the rest of the cast, while they are not standouts like Gary Oldman, they all do an excellent job. But what else would you expect from William Hurt? Hurt and the rest of the cast deserve credit for even being noticed in Lost In Space. It would have been very easy for all of them to fade into the background of Oldman's over the top performance and of the spectacular special effects. Not to mention the very cool updated Robot. Lost In Space is a whole lot of fun. Whether you were a fan of the TV series, or had never heard of it before, this is a thoroughly enjoyable movie. Although I must admit, fans of the series will get a little extra out of this updated version of Lost In Space with all of the references to the original series scattered around the film. 8/10 Visit The Movie Guy http://members.tripod.com/~MovieGuy/index.html From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Feb 11 16:32:14 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!newsfeed.xcom.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: bloom@courier-journal.com (Bob Bloom) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 24 Jan 1999 21:49:32 GMT Organization: None Lines: 93 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <78g4hc$1cqa$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer14.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 917214572 45898 (None) 140.142.17.39 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #16319 Keywords: author=bloom X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer14.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:15531 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2245 Lost in Space, starring William Hurt, Gary Oldman and Mimi Rogers 1 1/2 stars out of 4 Lost in Space is an apt title for a movie that is dramatically lost for lack of consistency and focus. This big-screen adaptation of the silly Irwin Allen sci-fi TV series of the 1960s hedges its bets by trying to be all things to all viewers, and in doing so founders in its own uncertainty. Is it straight s-f adventure? A send-up? A family drama? Yes, no and a little bit of each. Lost in Space, the TV show, lost many viewers when it disintegrated from a space drama to a campy kiddy show in which the show's purported main villain, the evil Dr. Zachery Smith, was transformed by producer Allen into a bumbling and verbose, comically and cowardly baddie. And it is the shadow of Jonathan Harris' performance as Dr. Smith that creates havoc in this cinematic reincarnation. Gary Oldman, an actor not known for subtley (for reference, see The Professional, The Fifth Element or Air Force One) is given the difficult task of following in Harris' space boots. Unfortunately, he is not at all helped by the screenplay of Akiva Goldsman, whose most recent offering was the feeble Batman and Robin. Goldsman script is too ambitious, trying to capture the flavor the TV show and blending it with a '90s quotient of familial angst. Thus, we get a movie in which dad (William Hurt as Professor John Robinson) is a workaholic, while mom (Mimi Rogers as Maureen Robinson) tries to balance home and career, while the kids (Heather Graham as Judy, Lacey Chabert as Penny and Jack Johnson as Will) all reflect, in some manner, the havoc caused by this dysfunctional family of the future. Eldest child Judy is a cold, brainy scientist who spends all her time working with dad on the Jupiter project. Penny is the rebellious middle child who would rather spend her days and nights at the mall instead of trapsing through space. And Will is the young genius working on scientific gizmos in order to capture his father's attention and love. So far, so good. A nice diversion from the Ozzie and Harriet-type family portrayed by Guy Williams and June Lockhart and their cute-as-button-children in the TV show. However, in rewriting the villainous Smith, Goldsman seems to have lost faith in his original vision. For Oldman's Smith is merely an updated version of Harris. He wheedles, lies, cringes and acts the coward, while tossing out sarcastic one-liners under his breath. It's charming, but not threatening. And what's a movie without some sort of serious antagonist. Therefore, Goldsman tosses in a subplot involving time displacement and some alien spiders in order to create a credible menacing villain. But by the time that all comes to pass, Lost in Space has nearly twisted itself back into the self-parodying world of Irwin Allen. Also not helping matters is the performance of Hurt. Here he seems detached, merely acting by the numbers. He spends a lot of time furrowing his brow and shooting sidelong glances at the rest of the cast. Matt LeBlanc as Major Don West seems like he's acting the part as a comic bit from his Friends sitcom. His macho posturing is almost campy. Young Johnson as Will Robinson has some good moments with his robot pal, while Chabert mouths some of the best zingers in the film. Rogers and Graham really have little to do. Oldman, unfortunately, can't seem to get a handle on how to handle his Dr. Smith. At times he's a comic villain, other times he's devilishly evil. Either way, he's neither fish nor fowl, and that is this movie's sore point. Of course, the open-ended finale leaves ample opportunities for sequels, but perhaps this Lost in Space should merely remain lost for all time. It's darker and more sophisticated than the TV series, but that's like saying The National Enquirer publishes a better product than your local high school newspaper. Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, Ind. He can be reached by e-mail at bloom@journal-courier.com cb Carol Bloom of Bloom Ink Publishing Professionals 3312 Indian Rock Lane West Lafayette, IN 47906-1203 765-497-9320 fax 765-497-3112 cbloom@iquest.net Committed to Lifelong Learning through Effective Communication From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Mar 26 18:23:17 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: moviman18@aol.com (Fox Davidson) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 24 Mar 1999 06:40:04 GMT Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com Lines: 38 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <7da1c4$r9c$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer29.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 922257604 27948 (None) 140.142.17.40 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #17405 Keywords: author=davidson X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer29.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:16626 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2276 Lost in Space Rated: PG-13 (for action violence and space scariness) Reviewed by Fox Davidson From the moment I saw trailers for Lost in Space, I knew I would probably like it. I am a junky when it comes to `90s science fiction, especially Star Trek and The X-Files. Now, after watching the DVD of Lost in Space, I can say that none of my expectations for the film were bashed. Okay, Space is not a very good film, but it kept me entertained for two hours. This is the film that knocked Titanic off the top spot on the box office charts earlier last year. The movie adaptation of the schlocky `60s television series. The show was a cheesy bore. The movie version is the same thing, but, with lively visuals and a nice cast. It's amazing what special effects can do for a film; Space is a mighty achievement in brain candy. The story tells of the (space) family Robinson, who's goal is to travel to a distant planet (I forget the name) to make sure it can be colonized, for Earth will not last two more years, in the year 2043. This is the only movie to feature a whole family, even the 10-year old kid, as scientists and astronauts. When the Robinsons launch to space, a scientist (Gary Oldman), who was hiding in the ship's bowels, takes over the controls, while the family are in hibernation, and accidentally send the ship to a different galaxy through some space-gate or whatnot. Lost in Space suffers from the usual Hollywood cliches and over the top action scenes that completely destroyed films like Armageddon and Con Air. But, it does have a nice sense of adventure not found in many sci-fi movies anymore. But, I have seen a number of better sci-fi films within the past two years, including The X-Files, Star Trek: Insurrection, Event Horizon, and Sphere. Plus, the movie kept switching from kid-friendly fluff to scary monster flick. The DVD features a number of fascinating tidbits, including a music video (for the annoying song that plays during the end credits), original cast interviews, a director commentary, and special effects featurette. However, I was very disappointed with the soundtrack. Low and unspectacular. Film: *** Disc: **** Wrote on 3-23-99 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Aug 24 16:19:47 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeed.direct.ca!xmission!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Joe Chamberlain" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost In Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 15 Aug 1999 19:40:11 GMT Organization: The Movie Guy Lines: 68 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <7p752r$8ag$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: "Joe Chamberlain" NNTP-Posting-Host: homer29.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 934746011 8528 (None) 140.142.17.40 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #20012 Keywords: author=chamberlain X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer29.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:19220 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2431 Lost In Space (1998) A review by Joe Chamberlain Starring Gary Oldman; William Hurt; Matt LeBlanc & Mimi Rogers Lost In Space is the updated remake of the campy 1960's television program. While it certainly is anything but campy, it is a worthy successor to the original series. Unlike the series, the film version of Lost In Space is big budget with top notch special effects. None of the aliens made from tinfoil that were so common from the series. Lost In Space boasts an A-level cast including Gary Oldman as the evil Dr. Smith, William Hurt as Professor John Robinson and Matt LeBlanc as Major Don West. Unlike TV show remakes from recent years, Mission: Impossible comes to mind, Lost In Space doesn't turn familiar characters into something that you don't expect. The good guys from the series are still good and the bad guy, namely Dr. Smith, is still bad. Although, if I had one complaint about the movie it would be with the character of Dr. Smith. While Gary Oldman does do a good job, the character of Smith is a little too nasty, although I suppose times change and the bad guys have to get a little more bad. Maybe part of my problem with Dr. Smith was that Jonathan Harris wasn't playing him. Harris was the main reason to watch the series and nobody, not even Gary Oldman, could properly replace him as Dr. Smith. The same can not be said for the other characters in the film, all of the current actors more than adequately filled the rolls of their 1960's counterparts. Lost In Space, in addition to keeping to the story line of the series also paid homage to it in other ways. These included cameos from some of the original stars of the TV series; Dick Tufeld, who was the voice of the Robot in the series also voices the Robot in the film. You should also pay special attention to the booster rocket that carries the updated Jupiter 2 from its launch pad on Earth. As for plot, it is the mid 21st Century and Earth is doomed to extinction from the pollution and abuse of the past centuries. John Robinson and his family are chosen to go to a new planet and ready it for colonization from the people of Earth. Something goes horribly wrong on the Robinson's journey. A terrorist stowaway, Dr. Smith, sabotages the mission and the whole bunch of them find themselves lost in some uncharted region of space. This new region of space is not without its dangers, including large killer spiders and some sort of phenomenon which seems to be affecting time itself. As I mentioned, the main reason to watch the television series was for Dr. Smith. While Gary Oldman's Smith can't compare to the original, he is still the most fun to watch. While his portrayal of Dr. Smith is far more evil than the TV version, the film version of Smith still takes the same joy at being bad. You have to love somebody that takes such pride in their work. As for the rest of the cast, while they are not standouts like Gary Oldman, they all do an excellent job. But what else would you expect from William Hurt? Hurt and the rest of the cast deserve credit for even being noticed in Lost In Space. It would have been very easy for all of them to fade into the background of Oldman's over the top performance and of the spectacular special effects. Not to mention the very cool updated Robot. Lost In Space is a whole lot of fun. Whether you were a fan of the TV series, or had never heard of it before, this is a thoroughly enjoyable movie. Although I must admit, fans of the series will get a little extra out of this updated version of Lost In Space with all of the references to the original series scattered around the film. 8/10 Visit The Movie Guy http://members.tripod.com/~MovieGuy/index.html From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Oct 22 23:00:13 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Jon Popick Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Lost in Space (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 22 Oct 1999 06:20:41 GMT Organization: Planet Sick-Boy Lines: 59 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <7uovnp$pfg$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer36.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 940573241 26096 (None) 140.142.17.37 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #21272 Keywords: author=popick X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer36.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:20505 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2486 PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com Imagine countries from around the world, united together in building an expensive hunk of space crap to send people into a previously uncharted world to help save all of humanity. The voyage is quickly sabotaged and ultimately ruined by a maniacal crackpot. No, I’m not talking about Contact or even The Real World 9. This is the big screen version of the campy 60’s television series, Lost in Space. It all happens in the year 2058, a year which finds our planet on the verge of environmental ruin. There is no clean water to drink and fossil fuels are practically non-existent. Our only saving grace is in the distant planet, Alpha Prime, which has a similar climate and whatnot to Earth. The plan (called The Jupiter Project) is to blast the Robinson family off on a ten-year journey to Alpha Prime, where they will build a transport back to earth, thusly making future travel much quicker. Sounds easy? It probably would have been if it weren’t for the meddling Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman, The Fifth Element). He sneaks aboard the Robinson craft in an attempt to reprogram the ship’s robot to destroy the mission. But, in the biggest example of intergalactic irony since Heston saw the Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet of the Apes, Smith ends up a stowaway aboard the now undermined vessel. Jesus, that almost sounded like a Dennis Miller line. After the Earth family Robinson retreat to their sleep pods, the robot comes to life, destroys all navigational systems and a bunch of other very crucial things before it’s stopped in one of the most harrowing robot-gone-out-of-control scenes since Robocop. It’s too late to save the mission as the ship has been thrown way off course. Of course, the Robinson family is too damn resourceful to give up that easily. They seemed too perfectly assembled, kind of like the cast of The A-Team. Each one is an expert in something, but I can’t remember what they all were. Actually, my memory became rather hazy after I saw Judy Robinson (Heather Graham, Boogie Nights) in her gleefully tight spacesuit. (Editor’s Note: If you would like to see more of the woman that PLANET SICK-BOY has named “The Most Beautiful American Actress - 1997”, watch her eat up the screen in Two Girls and a Guy) I do remember that there is a really cool scene where the ship goes into hyper-drive. And I remember being really pissed of about a CG monkey that they found on an abandoned craft. I also remember that the picture seemed about forty minutes too long, but I don’t remember caring. Writer Akiva Goldsman, occasionally a capable adapter of John Grisham books (The Client, A Time to Kill) but primarily the dunderhead who ruined the Batman franchise, has crafted a likeable story that’s a bit long in the tooth, but doesn’t frivolously waste valuable screen time (save the stupid monkey). Big kudos to Production Designer Norman Garwood (Brazil) for making one of the coolest spaceships ever. Of the actors, TV’s Joey (Matt LeBlanc, Friends) and Claudia (Lacey Chabert, Party of Five) stand out in the only roles that stray from the usual casting. There were also supposed to be a bunch of cameos from people who were in the original TV series, but I’m way too young to have ever seen it, so I don’t know who they were.