

LOST IN SPACE
** (out of four)
--by Bill Chambers ([email-masked])
(For more lame-ass reviews visit my scum-hearted website: FILM FREAK
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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"