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Lost In Space
Just Hangin' With The Robinsons
1998
Director: Stephen Hopkins
Starring: William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Matt LeBlanc
Sure, why not?
THE SETUP:
The Robinson family wind up lost in space and have wacky adventures.
DISCUSSION:
Okay, I KNOW the storyline was totally whacked, and I know that this movie makes no sense, and I know that with its "and then, and then, and then" storytelling it's not very satisfying. All that said, I loved it, I saw it four times in the theater and I bought the DVD.
Like you, I HATED it the first time. Then, out of pure desperation to see special effects, I went to see it again, and this time I LOVED it. If you go in not expecting ANYTHING by way of coherent storyline and just look at it as spending 2 hours with the Robinson family, then you'll like it.
The Robinsons are MUCH less irritating than they were in the original [with the exception of Penny]. I for one found the campy one-liners cute. Gary Oldman is SPOT ON as Dr. Smith. The new robot is VERY cool, and I hope they find a way to bring him back (another time bubble, perhaps?). Matt LeBlanc shows off a really excellent sense of comic timing.
I felt the filmmakers made an updated movie that played on the affections fans would have for the old show. I watched Lost in Space every day after school for years, and I loved little touches like the Jupiter I, which looks like the old ship, bursting open to reveal the new ship.
The screenplay is not as flat-out idiotic as it seems, and is actually quite ambitious, though perhaps too ambitious for audiences to follow. It takes two viewings just to follow the STORY, with all the time-travel and whatnot, and most people aren’t willing to sit through it again in order to sift through what it’s about. The writer very cannily realized that the point of view of the series was Will Robinson, and that the show was mainly a cool fantasy about a boy and his pet robot [with a bunch of the typical “navigating adolescence/strong family unit” crap included], and makes the movie about the adult Will’s rage at the his distant, too-busy father. It’s kind of a meditation on “if Will were real, how would he feel about all this when he grew up? Sure, he’s got a cool robot, but wouldn’t he rather have his father pay some attention to him?” There are also a number of surrogate father figures in Dr. Smith, the robot, and Major West. Shit, I’ve got to watch this thing again, this subtext is getting deeper by the minute.
Okay, I just skimmed through the movie again and you’re right, it’s crap. The subtext is ambitious, but so buried in obvious call-outs to the teen crowd, stupid plot developments, anything related to Penny [like the moronic Penny-cam], attack spiders, etc… that it all gets lost. This is a movie that script that badly needed someone else to take it and revise it at least once before it went before the cameras. Because there are a lot of good ideas here, but few of them really come off.
Nevertheless, it’s FUN!
As far as the special effects, they clearly decided to have less professional effects but just spread them across the entire movie. Which is a totally valid approach, as far as I’m concerned. There is also an aesthetic to the special effects to have a TON of shit going on in the same frame. Witness the opening dogfight, which is just dizzying. So I am also inclined to give this thing some points for HAVING an aesthetic to its special effects.
Whatever. I like it. I realize there is no defense for this, I know it’s wrong… and yet I like it.
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
If you can lower your expectations to previously-unplumbed levels.
