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!
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