‘In the Lost Lands’ Review: Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista in a Stale George R.R. Martin Adaptation – Hollywood Reporter
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Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterA witch and a gunslinger team up in Paul W.S. Anderson’s violent fantasy film based on the short story by the ‘Game of Thrones’ author.
By
Frank Scheck
There’s one thing you can count on in a post-apocalyptic society: that the place names are annoyingly literal. In Paul W.S. Anderson’s latest fantasy adventure you can pretty much figure out what a locale is like just from its moniker. Besides the titular region, which consists of little more than ruins and an abundance of monsters, there’s “Skull River,” which contains, you guessed it, thousands of skulls. You can imagine where the “City Under the Mountain” is located, or what you’ll find in the “Fire Fields.” It’s as if all the maps were destroyed along with the rest of society and along with, judging by the film’s painfully muddy color scheme, primary colors as well.
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“The world you know is gone,” we’re informed at the beginning, in the sort of dystopian warning that is all too common in films of this genre but is starting to feel more and more like a public service announcement. The movie, based on a short story by George R.R. Martin (Games of Thrones), begins with narration delivered by one of the central characters, Boyce, played by Dave Bautista as if he had wandered out of a Sergio Leone western.
In the Lost Lands
The Bottom Line
The early 2000s called, they want their movie back.
Release date: Friday, March 7Cast Milla Jovovich, Dave Bautista, Arly Jover, Amara Okereke, Fraser James, Simon Loof, Deirdre Mullins, Sebastian StankiewiczDirector: Paul W. S. AndersonScreenwriter: Constantin Werner
Rated R,
1 hour 42 minutes
And things certainly don’t seem to be looking good for the other main character, a witch known as Gray Alys (Milla Jovovich, Anderson’s spouse and frequent collaborator on such films as the Resident Evil series). When first seen, she’s about to be hanged by a religious cult headed by the Patriarch (Fraser James) and his ruthless “enforcer,” Ash (Arly Jover). But as they soon find out, and probably should have already known, it’s not so easy to hang a witch.
The plot (and please try to follow this) is set in motion when the Queen (Amara Okereke), accompanied by her “Captain of Overwatch” Jerais (Simon Loof), approaches Gray Alys with the request that she travel to the Lost Lands and secure for her the power to become a shape-shifter so that she can be with her lover, a werewolf. Jerais, who is secretly in love with the Queen, in turn asks Gray Alys to deliberately fail in her quest. Despite the fact that the requests are contradictory, the witch agrees to fulfill both, because what else is a witch to do?
“Give me until the full moon,” Gray Alys tells the Queen, in lieu of saying something more specific like “until Thursday.”
Gray Alys recruits the taciturn Boyce to be her guide through the treacherous region. “I’m looking for a man who can turn into a beast,” she tells him. “All men are beasts,” Boyce replies. “But not all men are monsters,” she ripostes. Noel Coward, it’s not.
You can pretty much imagine what comes next as Gray Alys and Boyce run into a wide variety of nasty situations during their journey into the Lost Lands, even if the latter does get to enjoy a brief roll in the hay with an old “friend” (Deirdre Mullins) along the way. They’re relentlessly pursued by Ash and her army of murderous monks and also must contend with the most fearsome CGI demonic creatures a mid-budget movie can create. Boyce’s favorite weapon besides his ever-present firearm is a two-headed snake that at one point meets an unfortunate end, leaving the normally unemotional gunslinger in a desolate state.
“I never saw a man get emotional about a snake before,” Gray Alys observes. “I’m not emotional,” he gruffly replies. “Damn good snake, that’s all.”
As you can tell from those examples, the screenplay by Constantin Werner features the sort of dialogue best suited to the silent screen. Providing some compensation is the filmmaker’s undeniable flair for evocative post-apocalyptic-style visuals, here rendered with an effective combination of real and computer-generated settings. There are also some nifty action sequences, the best of which is a gunfight on a cable car (actually an old bus) suspended high above the burnt-out city.
But for anyone not predisposed to enjoy this sort of thing, the film is a long haul, suffering from a simultaneously overstuffed and paper-thin narrative that, toward the conclusion, features enough revelations and plot twists to make Agatha Christie throw up her hands.
It doesn’t help that the two leads don’t display any discernible chemistry, with Jovovich resorting to her usual bad-ass screen persona and Bautista given few opportunities to showcase his unique charisma. Unlike so many of Anderson’s efforts, In the Lost Lands isn’t adapted from a video game. But it sure as hell feels like one, and not one that would be fun to play.Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every daySign up for THR news straight to your inbox every daySubscribe for full access to The Hollywood ReporterSend us a tip using our anonymous form.
