Review: 'Land of the Lost'

Will Ferrell plays a washed-up scientist who gets thrown back to an age of dinosaurs in this struggling comedy, based on the '70s TV Show.

It sounded like a funny idea. Will Ferrell in a movie about a nincompoop scientist who ends up in a mishmashed time warp where dinosaurs still rule the earth. (There were times during "Jurassic Park" when I would have welcomed some goofball slapstick.) But funny ideas don't automatically make for funny movies. In this regard, "Land of the Lost," which takes off from the 1970s TV series, is Exhibit A.

With his belligerent blankness and gawky aplomb, Ferrell has made me laugh as much as any comic of his generation, but he's not doing anything fresh in "Land of the Lost." Maybe if the jokes were any good, or the direction (by Brad Silberling) was more than traffic-managing, or his talented co-star Anna Friel was given more to do than be vacuously spunky. It's all so resolutely uninspired that even the kids in the audience may want to duck out. Grade: D+ (Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content, and for language, including a drug reference.)