DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!
A review of "Lost In Space"
The Nineties have been called "the era of reduced expectations", and nothing seems to support this more than the spate of recent films. Many efforts ("Starship Troopers", "The Lost World", "Alien Resurrection") seem to be little more than tent poles for extensive marketing campaigns or establishing franchi- ses, rather than involving an audience. I'd be tempted to say that "Lost In Space" is the ultimate extension of that philosophy, but I'm afraid to be pro- ven wrong by a film even less concerned with coherence.
There's a salvaged feeling to the whole film, as if some drastic changes were made at the last minute after the rough cut was assembled and screened. There isn't an opening credit sequence, and one is tempted to think (as one of my friends did) that the end credits were originally at the beginning, only to be moved to the end of the film after they made a poor impression at early test screenings. The film begins by introducing not the Robinson family, but the Major West character in a space battle. This action sequence was clearly in- tended to wow the audience before the main story gets underway, but only suc- ceeds at hurling lots of effects at us without engaging our emotions.
This sheer volume method of entertainment continues throughout the film, the plot of which consists mainly of elements from the first few episodes, combin- ed with bits and pieces from other films made over the last twenty years. The mission is re-written as a sort of competition between two factions, each try- ing to reach (and colonize) the same new planet first. Earth's natural resour- ces are almost completely exhausted, and its dwindling ozone layer spells Cer- tain Doom for the human race. This is an attempt to update the Cold War aspects of the original series, but (as with the James Bond series) when the Cold War is removed, it makes the new premise seem arbitrary (why would two factions sabotage the others' mission if both face certain extinction when Earth dies?). At any rate, Dr. Smith (played perceptively, if too subtly, by Gary Oldman) is once again trapped in the ship as it launches, caught in his own subterfuge as the robot he reprogrammed begins to demolish the space- craft. This forces the crew to blast their way into deep space without proper preparation, plunking them in an unknown quadrant with no point of reference to guide the way home.
Most know that the Robinson name is no accident, and transplanting "Swiss Fam- ily Robinson" into outer space seems like a reasonable opportunity for an ex- citing survival/exploration adventure. Very little is done with this decent premise other than burying the viewer under an avalanche of very uneven effects work. Director Steven ("Predator 2") Hopkins has experience directing effects, so it's puzzling that he'd use this vast amount of computer imagery with such a lack of clarity -- even the editing has little sense of geography. Bruch Broughton's score is hardly noticable over the clamor. Akiva Goldsman's script shows most of the weaknesses evident in his writing for "Batman and Robin" -- a predeliction for one-liners and short term laughs at the expense of long-term structure and character development.
The saddest loss due to this approach is the robot -- Goldsman's script reduces him to a Mr. Microphone for Will (though this is one of the film's few good jokes), and by the time he begins to evolve into an actual character, there's little time remaining for him to do anything. The rest of the script is a daisy-chain of one-liners (most of which render the characters as unlikable smart-alecks) and incidents (an extended sequence on a derelict spaceship seems to exist only to force the Jupiter 2 to crash-land on the required planet) that lead to a time-travel premise. This sort of thing is tricky stuff for anybody, and here it collapses entirely, giving the characters an opportunity to return to the time and place that the sabotage occurred, thus allowing them to essentially eradicate the events of the film. Oddly, the crew doesn't choose to do this, but instead they drop themselves in the middle of another perilous situation (when exactly the time machine is reset is unclear) which requires them to once again use the hyperspace button and get themselves even more lost.
The fact that their mission to save Earth has failed isn't supposed to matter anymore, because somewhere along the line, Pop Robinson has learned to become a caring father after years of putting his career first (even if you buy this, the daughters are completely ignored, which doesn't say much for the parenting message), and to bond less sarcastically with his wife. The older Robinson daughter learns to love the chauvanist pilot, while the younger daughter gets a pet to care about. The family members' performances range from bland (Hurt) to infuriatingly smug and precocious (Lacey Chabert). Heather Graham struggles mightily, but can't rise above her nasty, you-go dialogue. June Lockhart has an arbitrary cameo as one of Will's teachers. It's sad to see such a basic premise made into such a noisy muddle. Not recommended.
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- Jeff "When I'm Finished With You, They'll Be Stumbling Over YOU In The Dark" Pidgeon
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