Lost in Space

I started writing a review for this film, but soon got caught up in what Steven King likes to call diarrhea of the typewriter. It kept getting longer and longer, and I still wasn't even near the final opinion paragraph. One trip to the recycle bin later, here I am starting fresh -- telling you just how excited I managed not to be about Lost in Space.

Here's where I got in trouble last time, so to keep it short: Robinson's and West -- good. Smith and spiders -- bad. Robot -- depends on where in the movie you are. Professor Robinson and his clan are off to save the world, by building a hyperspace gate around a new world just waiting for humanity to spoil and use up, just like they've done to the current one. Dr. Smith is secretly working for a group of bad guys who want to do the same thing, but before the Robinson's (they want to rule the new world). Smith reprograms the ship's robot to wreck the ship after it leaves Earth, but gets double crossed and left on the ship to die with the rest of them. He wakes up just in time to wake everyone out of cryo-sleep in time to helplessly plunge into the sun. Last gasp effort not to die -- use the hyperdrive. "There's no way of knowing where we'll go". "Anywhere's better than here". Several special effect shots later, they're in orbit around a strange planet in uncharted space, approaching a strange ship, after passing through some sort of temporal displacement. They dock to the strange ship, meet one cute monkey like alien, and several thousand very nasty spider aliens. They escape, Major West blows up the strange ship, which sends them crashing down into the planet below. They need more core material for their reactor before they can leave -- Professor R. and Major W. set off in search of some (this is as far as I got the first time, but it was 5 time longer than it is now -- aren't you glad I rewrote it?). They meet up with the only survivors of the mission they're on now -- a strangely mutated Dr. Smith (well, not yet, but soon), and a 40 year old Will Robinson. Shortly afterwards, the unmutated Dr. S. and a 10 year old Will Robinson show up as well. While the the two Will's discuss the finer points of time machine construction, the unmutated Dr. S. reprograms a robot he's never seen, and is about to kill them all when the previously mentioned mutant Dr. S. shows up. He apparently got a little too close to a nasty spider, and turned into one himself. Young Will, West, and normal Smith make it back to the ship, only to die in a crash. Old Will sends Daddy Robinson back through his time machine to rescue the family, they use the updated starcharts from the strange ship to set a course for Alpha Prime, and hopefully here we go.....

This film gives new meaning to phrase 'Special Effects Extravaganza' -- I honestly can't think of a single instant in the movie that didn't have some sort of effect. The actors seemed aware of that fact as well -- they almost seem to be cringing, wondering whether or not they're in the wrong place. The entire cast also seemed to be entirely too pale and moist throughout the film -- you'd have thought they'd been locked in a cave for the past 12 years. Matt LaBlanc, in an attempt to re-categorized himself, fails miserably -- Major West is too much like Joey from Friends trying to be macho. Lacey Chabert exists in her own Helium filled universe -- her voice is more appropriate for a cartoon mouse, than a teenage girl (it gets worse when they add a flanging effect for her personal diary entries). As for young Will Robinson -- two words, Wesley Crusher! The auxiliary cast is no better -- Maj. West's star fighting buddy -- if you were to clone Samuel L Jackson, then suck the talent out of the clone (to add to Mr. Jackson's considerable supply), you'd have this guy. And although some films at least pay lip service to the realities of physics, there's none here. The time displacement has absolutely no logic to it, and for a group of supposedly intelligent people, they have to be the stupidest group ever placed in a film. At least in horny teenage slasher films, the stupid ones get what's coming to them. Oh well, maybe this crew won't get a sequel -- that will have to do I guess.