In the Lost Lands

This Europudding production plods unrewardingly through the murky and humourless terrain of science-fantasy; it is a movie of flabby characterisation, dull storytelling and midprice VFX work.

In The Lost Lands, however, feels superficial even by Anderson’s standards, leaning a little too heavily into his predilection for pastiche.

Ultimately, the threadbare quality of Constantin Werner’s screenplay cannot be smoothed over with gobs of CGI effects (impressive as some of these sequences look) and the star power of Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista.

Is this a real movie? I’m not entirely certain, and I certainly can’t recommend watching it. But I am amused by the bizarre Anderson-Jovovich oeuvre and hope they keep cranking them out.

While the ending of this boisterous action adventure is a muddle, the magic is compelling, and the movie drops the self-seriousness that sometimes plagues adaptations of Martin’s sprawling work.

A threadbare film that barely resembles an idea.

With In The Lost Lands, auteur Anderson paints with the most delicious desolation imaginable, all to his trademark throbbing soundtrack beats.

Anderson’s background as a production designer falls flat in a movie that feels like it was primarily filmed using digital environments. It renders some of the more reliable qualities of an Anderson film moot and leaves me with little to latch onto.

Anderson is generally competent when it comes to memorable action sequences but with In The Lost Lands there’s far more emphasis on the dynamic between its two leads which unfortunately never really takes off.

What does Anderson achieve here that he hasn’t in his previous films? There is nothing besides showcasing how some things were meant to be programmed on the SYFY network rather than made into a feature-length film.