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Dom Robinson reviews

Lost In Space

An adventure like nothing on Earth

Distributed by

Entertainment In Video

Lost In Space is the big-screen outing for the classic 1965 TV series updating the story for the world 33 years later. In the 1990's version, it is the year 2058 and Earth has only twenty years left before all the fossil fuels are exhausted so the battle is on to colonise the human race on the nearest habitable planet, Alpha Prime. All the warring factions have put aside their differences (so, Prime Minister, don't worry too much about your daft 'Good Friday' peace agreement) and are committed to building a "hypergate" which teleports man and machine from Earth's orbit to that of the new planet.

The crew has been chosen. Led by the son of one of the Academy's best members, Dr John Robinson (William Hurt) will lead his dysfunctional family into space, that being made up of wife Maureen (Mimi Rogers), daughters Judy (Heather Graham) and Penny (Lacey Chabert) and son Will (Jack Johnson). Expert fighter Major Don West (Friends star Matt Le Blanc) is on hand to guide the Jupiter spacecraft on its ten-year mission to victory by putting the family into a cryogenic sleep while they reach Alpha Prime.

All fine and dandy then and absolutely nothing can go wrong. That is until Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman playing it camp) sabotages the mission by planting a killer robot on board, but doesn't account for staying on for the ride, much to the disapproval (to put it politely) of the others when they are woken up only hours from blast off.

What follows is the Robinsons' attempts to keep Smith at bay so he does no more harm, while trying to find a way out of this mess he's put them in. Will they succeed and find a route home? You should know that question if you saw the original TV series and/or have an inkling that the studio will want to get a bit of mileage out of some sequels...

At the time this film was created, it was stating as breaking the record for the total number of special effects for a film, with a count approaching 750 and it's clear that they took pole position over the acting ability of the cast. The differences of the world leaders may have been put to rest, but man still fights against woman when there's household chores to be done.

William and Mimi bicker like a couple on the brink of divorce, Jack Johnson is rather a know-it-all kid, Lacey Chabert whines cutely and frequently and Heather Graham doesn't look quite as good as she did in Boogie Nights, but... the best scenes come when the remaining two major cast members work together.

Gary Oldman, as the manic Dr. Smith, is always worth a watch even when the script isn't all it could be as was proved in The Fifth Element, while Matt Le Blanc proves he could find a niche as a wise-cracking action hero when the time comes for the cast of Friends to grow up and get their own apartments. Finally, there's a cameo from Edward Fox as the 'business man' who instructs Oldman to sabotage the Jupiter ship.

movie pic

William Hurt realised too late that the ship
belonged to heavy metal group Disaster Area

The picture quality is first-rate for all but a handful of seconds between 54 and 55 minutes into the film when some grain is evident onscreen. I understand this features on the Region 1 release as well so must be a fault of the original master and given that the miniscule amount of time that it appears last shorter than the time it took me to write this sentence, it's not a reason for avoiding this DVD.

At all other times, the picture on this dual-layer disc is astounding with bright, sharp colours and a fantastic anamorphic pressing which works wonders with a widescreen TV as it's free of artifacts. The average bitrate is a fine 5.1Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 7Mb/s. The film is presented in its original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 (not "16:9" as quoted on the back cover, which seems to hint that their DVD releases are anamorphic - rather than the actual ratio - but it doesn't apply for the 1.66:1 Much Ado About Nothing) and the anamorphic picture brings with it an extra 33% of resolution for those with widescreen televisions.

Thankfully, the anamorphic problem of giving people 'fat faces', as seen in Wag The Dog and Boogie Nights has now been cured and the geometry is correct.

The sound quality is brilliant with speakers exploding all around the room as the shots are fired, spaceships take off or get blown up and creatures called Blarp go "Blarp !". This is one of the few EiV titles to get a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack - why can't they ALL be encoded this way ?

movie pic

Seeing space outside made Gary Oldman realise
not all was well with his escape plan.

Extras :

Chapters and Trailer :

24 chapters cover the major scenes in the film that the box claims lasts 130 minutes, although it's closer to 125. A few more wouldn't have gone amiss, but the booklet containing the chapter titles looks to have had a slight mishap in the printing as the first few pages have been cut off at the wrong point, resulting in some of The Mask's title coming through.

Two trailers adorn this release. The back cover states they are the US and International one, but the DVD states "teaser" and "theatrical" options, the first being in an anamorphic 16:9 ratio and the second being non-anamorphic.

Languages & Subtitles :

Just one language, but the good news is that it is in English and in Dolby Digital 5.1. Subtitles are also included in the same language.

Other extras :

What's missing ? : While there's plenty of extras on this DVD, there's still a few more that could have topped them off.

Menu :

The main menu is one of the best yet for the UK DVD market. After the dull copyright logo, the screen goes black and the new Lost in Space logo swings into view. The main and sub-menus are also animated - most of them containing sound too - and with a look the same as the control panels on the Jupiter 2.

On inserting the disc, you see the copyright info, the Entertainment In Video logo and then the spinning LS logo leading to an anamorphic main menu. Clicking on "Start" brings up the New Line Cinema logo again before the film starts.

movie pic

Matt Le Blanc felt sure to win the Spawn lookalike contest.

Lost in Space on DVD, like The Mask, is a product scoring close-to-full marks in most technical sections, but for this film it could have been improved by shortening certain scenes (it seems to take a fair while before the Jupiter 1 takes off, for example, as well as later scenes which run too long) and stopping Heather Graham from looking too pasty-faced.

Overall, if you have a Region 2-only machine it's a worthy purchase but, again, the American disc still wins hands down if you're not fussed about losing a Crystal Method promo. It would be nice if someone in the quality control department took a bit of time to get the box info right though. 

FILM	 		: ***
PICTURE QUALITY 	: ****½
SOUND QUALITY		: *****
EXTRAS			: ****
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ****

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

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