Attempt to reboot the cheesy TV show is underwhelming, but considering that the original show, like all Irwin Allen productions, was utter garbage, it is something of an improvement. Oldman is definitely better than the simpering, potential pedophile Dr. Smith of the original series, but his villain is so vaguely defined that his menace is diminished. That's the problem with the film in general; there is so much going on that whatever plot there is is lost in the noise.
The other problem is the cast; the two kids are awfully annoying (Johnson especially gives Jake Lloyd a running for brat that sank a sci-fi franchise), and the parents aren't much better. Hurt especially is not so much phoning it in as mailing an occassional postcard to his career. Ironic that LeBlanc gives the most invested performance considering Mark Goddard was the only adult who tried to act on the old show. At least Dick Tufeld reprises the robot's voice, the one saving grace of the film. The addition of a "cute" CGI alien sort of suggests the producers knew they had a stinker in the works and were trying to hedge their bets. it doesn't help.
This was supposed to be the first film of a trilogy; the film performed so poorly that was scrapped, and serves as a pretty good epitaph for this attempt to restart a franchise. it would take until 2018 when Netflix rebooted it as a series for Lost in Space to recover.
-Dave W. |