CINEMA: Land of the Lost

What is Will Ferrell on these days? He’s gone from being genuinely laugh out loud funny to starring in duds like this that only contain one giggle at best.

Based on a dangerously dated TV series, the knitted-together-from-noodles plot has Ferrell starring as Dr Rick Marshall, a quantum palaeontologist falling through a wormhole into the Land of the Lost with Holly (Anna Friel) as his assistant and redneck Will (Danny McBride) as a hapless hanger-on.

Here they encounter a T-Rex, simian humans who speak a primitive language (and like touching Friel’s breasts – ha ha), giant crabs and some dubiously made-up lizard-like aliens who want to take over the universe.

Director Brad Silberling tries to juggle so many random characters and plot lines he forgets the film is meant to be a comedy so the comic timing is very badly off – if you don’t see the jokes coming from a mile off the first time round, you can, of course, catch them on the rebound as most are repeated lest you failed to get the joke.

It’s not worth the entrance fee to see what soon becomes a laugh-free land.

Dee Pilgrim