The Land That Time Forgot - 2009

So I really had high hopes for this movie. Reading the description, it sounded like the greatest choice for the evening...at least according to my daughter Emily who was really gunning for this movie. Shipwrecked, stranded on an island where dinosaurs roam and meeting people from all different time periods who co-existed with the creatures on the island...WOW! I was expecting something that was some sort of mash up of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Land of the Lost. Instead, I got something that the gang of MST3K (Mystery Science Theater 3000) would have DELIGHTED over. In our place, we had frequent bouts of LAUGHTER during the "frightening" scenes.

There were people stranded on a deserted island that I guess time forgot about...but the movie started with absolutely no build. There were no opening credits...it was just MOVIE. And we were left to ponder "why are there a bunch of people on a boat?" There was a sudden storm, everyone awoke from some sort of deep sleep and suddenly they were in an alternate universe. Everyone but one of the people got off the boat when land was spotted. I had my first real doubts about the movie here. The character that chose to stay on board the boat and NOT get on land was frightened by a giant sea creature that she saw float menacingly beneath the boat. HELLO...why stay somewhere where you are threatened by this sea creature? GET OFF THE STUPID BOAT..."SEA" creatures don't normally live on LAND.

So people start dying by pretty gross ways - most are ripped apart or eaten (sorry for any spoilers) and there's even a HYSTERICAL scene where one character is chomped in half by a T-Rex - the dinosaur gets the head and torso in a VERY clean bite and everything waist and below just stands there...the legs slowly waiver ever so slightly, the knees bend and then the legs just fall. REALLY? REALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poor, poor Edgar Rice Burroughs(the author of The Land That Time Forgot) and SHAME on YOU C. Thomas Howell. The one saving grace is that Emily wasn't at all scared during this movie...and we had plenty of time to chat about our respective days when we were trying to keep from being bored during the scenes that were supposed to be suspense-filled. The graphics were a joke, the violence was bloody and not necessary (but also laughable) and the ONE SAVING GRACE of this movie (the idea that there were all sorts of people from history there, significant characters that we could have attached ourselves to) was barely touched upon. The one star rating I gave this movie on Netflix was a bit generous.

The IMDB link