The Land That Time Forgot

This movie fails on almost every possible level:

Bad acting: check.

Poor direction: check.

Hackneyed script: check.

Painfully bad CG: check.

Odd pacing: check.

Timothy Bottoms looking embarrassed and wondering when he can go home and start drinking: check.

Run screaming, tripping and flailing away from this sad attempt at a movie.

The original film and the novel were and still are a favourite of mine. Unfortunately this 2009 remake is possibly the worst film I have ever seen. Terrible acting. Even worse effects. Oh dear

I really wanted to like this -I've enjoyed this story since I was a child, and was looking forward to a more modern telling of it. Sadly, the acting was so forced, so deplorable, that it was actually painful to sit through this. Perhaps the movie actually improved toward the end -I'll never know. I wasn't able to handle watching this sad excuse for shovelware of a movie. I didn't go into this expecting a special-effects extravaganza. I just expected competent acting. I mean REALLY, when they insist on remaking movies, shouldn't they actually try to improve the performances? Sigh. I couldn't give it anything less than a 3 because the story itself is a timeless classic -the writing didn't fail here, the acting did. Not really worth the time. Thats about all I can really say.

I really wanted to like this movie as I have always liked C. Thomas Howell but unfortunately I can't say that I liked it. I can say that I watched it, but that's about it.

I was able to sit through it and that may be the best that Howell can hope for. The dialog was a bit unimportant and even somewhat silly at times. The whole thing seemed like a compromise - which I am sure to some degree (as with anything under budget constraints) it was.

There was no effort exhausted in building characters that you could care about or for that matter knew anything about. When someone got killed you just did not care - at all.

The more fascinating and cerebral aspects of this story were completely glossed over or avoided altogether; although I did find it interesting that there was a brief discussion on the details of refining petroleum. which I had expected would be ignored (okay in movies I guess).

Overall, it barely held my attention and came off as another lame Sci-Fi channel, low budget, bad CG feature.

Don't get me wrong, there were some things to like, but I think in this case, Howell probably had his hands tied as far as time/money are concerned and more money/time could have been invested in script, effects and filming.

I flicked to the SyFy channel near the start of the movie and instantly judged this to be a cliched, awful CGI, straight-to-video B-movie, and while it is these things, it is also surprisingly watcheable.

After marooning on a desert island, the cast find they are not the first to be marooned there, in addition there are also dinosaurs, well it is the bermuda triangle.

The CGI is very outdated and you have to force yourself to believe it for it to work. The female and male roles are very cliched with women being supportive and men being action-oriented, they are generally ridiculously brazen and immune to post-dino PTSD. Having said that couples are given more than a few moments of embracing and it definitely seems that no-one is an island on this island. These heroes are human.

I was surprised to find themes of brain over brawn, with solutions to predicaments typically having a plan created, and with the final plan being thought up out of geeky scientific knowledge. I was also surprised at the level of working together and the lack of animosity, especially when the nazis are encountered, as it turns out to be more like that Christmas football game in no-man's land than trench-warfare. There is some skullduggery, but overall the theme is of helping each other, and teamwork!

The movie ending is fairly warm-hearted and positive.