LOST IN SPACE (26)

Directed by: Stephen Hopkins

Starring: William Hurt, Gary Oldman, Mimi Rogers, Matt LeBlanc

The Pitch: A futuristic family find themselves stranded on a desert planet as a result of space travel gone wrong.

Theo Sez: Numbing, puzzling and vile-tasting, though in fact most of it is merely irritating - a competent, undistinguished, clearly expensive bit of sci-fi, liberally spiced with a wide miscellany of things to set your teeth on edge : a TOP GUN-ish prologue featuring gung-ho LeBlanc ("Last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer!") rescuing a wounded buddy from the enemy's lair ("I'm going in!" "Major West, you are not authorised -") ; excerpts from the 'video diary' of an obnoxious teenager, labouring under delusions of Goth-ness ; Heather Graham miscast as a cold-fish scientist ("This matter appears biological") ; a precocious brat, smarter than all the adults put together, handling a powerful robot through a snazzy virtual-reality machine (pandering, not to mention synergetic marketing, doesn't get more obvious than this) ; a Muppet-like space critter letting out a burp for comic relief ; Mimi Rogers as Mrs. Robinson, busily Nurturing in the background ("I'm dealing with two kids who are leaving an entire planet behind") then coming to the fore in a strange, misconceived scene where she scolds her husband like a naughty little boy (what is it with Hollywood screenwriters and the Mommy-dominatrix figure?). Oddly enough, despite all the above, it remains reasonably diverting till the final section, an extended climax that's both incoherent (why, for one thing, doesn't the adult Will use his time machine to prevent it all from happening, instead of merely whisking his father five minutes back?) and over-intense in a noxious, weird-Freudian- fantasy way : rancid film-making, even by (writer-producer) Akiva Goldsman's standards. Highlights before that include a lively spider battle and the ever-flaky Hurt (who could probably use the film's title for a personal motto) ; low points include the bromides about dysfunctional families, sending up the wholesome picture served up by the original series (and "The Waltons", which also gets referenced) - not, apparently, realising that its own jaundiced version is equally one-dimensional.