Land Of The Lost (2009) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Brad Silberling

Starring:  Will Ferrell, Anna Friel, Danny McBride, Matt Lauer

Anyone who ever saw an episode of the 70's TV series Land Of The Lost knows full well what to expect in the film version.     I vaguely remember the series, except that the visual effects and sets were cheesy and it was camp.     Land Of The Lost has better effects, but it is still campy fun.     I'm quite certain anyone associated with the film knew their names weren't going to be called the morning the Oscar nominations were announced and slept peacefully the night before.    

The film opens with a funny sequence involving Dr. Rick Marshall (Ferrell) coming on the Today show and being grilled by Matt Lauer over his book on time travel.     Dr. Marshall has spent $50 million in research on the possibility that portals exist which allow for time travel.     Host Matt Lauer openly scoffs Rick and this leads to a near brawl on set.     Three years pass, and Rick is now teaching science to grade schoolers to his chagrin.    A scientist kicked out of Cambridge for buying into Rick's theories approaches him and says that they could work, if he could just finish building the "tachyon meter".    The whole tachyon thing left me puzzled, but no matter.    The fact that the scientist is a fetching woman named Holly (Friel) probably inspires Rick to action more than anything else.

Soon enough, with the tachyon meter built, the two make their way to New Mexico where they believe one of the portals exists on the property of Will (McBride).     All three are transported in time (or is it an alternate dimension?) where dinosaurs roam and nearby are ruins of a motel with a pool still full of water.     How does this happen?   I couldn't explain it, but I went along with it.   

The plot, of course, becomes more cheerfully ridiculous as the movie wears on.    I cared somewhat, but I wasn't pulled along, perhaps because after a while it seemed that anything goes and there weren't any rules to play by.    Characters like Chaka, a neanderthal, inexplicably can speak English in some cases and other modern technology like a phonograph appear out of nowhere.    I'm not certain if even the screenwriters can explain that.     Since Danny McBride is in the film, there has to be an obligatory scene in which characters get high on whatever chemical is around.     Must be written into his contract. 

But despite it all, the actors are having fun and know not to take things too seriously.    We know it will all turn out all right in the end, whatever that may be.   But any movie where a book is titled, "Matt Lauer Can Suck It" can't be all bad.