[5]
Director Stephen Hopkins (Predator 2, The Ghost and the Darkness) tackles this big budget reboot of Irwin Allen’s 1960s television show about a family of space explorers who get lost among the stars. William Hurt and Mimi Rogers play the parents, while Heather Graham, Lacey Chabert, and Jack Johnson play their children — all skilled scientists in their own right. Along for the journey are Matt LeBlanc (Friends) as their reluctant lug-head pilot and Gary Oldman as a duplicitous saboteur who can’t be trusted.
After a relatively strong first act, Lost in Space struggles with momentum and focus. An investigation of a derelict space craft leads to an attack by hundreds of robot spiders and a crash landing on a planet where a ‘time bubble’ introduces time travel to the storyline. The third act eventually embraces a father/son storyline to hang its hat on. It might have been a powerful-enough dramatic arc to sustain the film if it had been better established throughout Akiva Goldsman’s messy screenplay. The film also suffers from dated-looking, early computer-generated imagery. Most egregious is a crude-looking space monkey pet that joins the family half-way through the movie.
As uneven as the film is, the cast is charismatic enough to create several bright spots along the run-time. While Hurt and Rogers are perfunctory in their roles, Oldman makes for a memorably witty adversary and LeBlanc fills the snarky hero role admirably. Lacey Chabert (Party of Five) is surprisingly entertaining as the family’s sarcastic, youngest daughter. Production values are high, with strong set and costume design, and a big score by Bruce Broughton (Silverado, Young Sherlock Holmes).
With Jared Harris and cameos from the cast of the original television show.