Directed By Paul W.S Anderson

Starring – Milla Jovovich, Dave Bautista, Arly Jover

The Plot – A queen, desperate to find happiness in love, takes a daring step: she sends the powerful and feared witch Gray Alys (Jovovich) to the “Lost Lands” to give her the magical gift of turning into a werewolf. With the mysterious hunter Boyce (Bautista), who supports her in the fight against dark creatures and merciless enemies, Gray Alys roams an eerie and dangerous world. And only she knows that every wish she grants has unimaginable consequences…

Rated R for graphic violence

In the Lost Lands | Official Trailer (HD) | Vertical

POSITIVES

It should come as no surprise that Dave Bautista is the best part of this movie, and that comes with regards to the undeniable professionalism and charisma that he brings to a role that could easily fall by the wayside of a movie that is worse than anything that the wrestler-turned-actor has ever been a part of. Dave’s radiant screen presence immediately perked up my interests towards the individualized scenes that he adorned, and with a firm commitment towards flimsy lines of dialogue and inconsistent backstory, the likes of which did him little favors, it’s quite miraculous that he comes out of this film mostly unscathed, adding not only to the believability that he physically has as a kick-ass action star, but also a constant professional who brings the same level of energy and determination towards getting characters right, and Boyce is easily my favorite character because of the emotional depth that he supplants to his rendering. In addition to this, most of the film’s technical merits barely reach subpar, in terms of their quality, but I found a lot of the sound designs in the film to echo a heft and devastating impact that the audience didn’t get to experience coherently within the movie’s visuals, serving as the single solitary example of authenticity to sequences that were cloaked in artificiality, especially towards some of the more elaborate action set pieces involving automobiles in echoing explosions.

NEGATIVES

Typically, time and experience are the tools that mold a great director, but in the case of Paul W.S Anderson, who I’ve found at best mediocre since the thrilling space odyssey that was “Event Horizon”, those elements towards delivering a film every couple of years make it all the more puzzling towards understanding why so many of his films even still are these mostly incoherent and conflicting action thrillers that are defined by many of the same unfortunate components that squander its quality. Case and point with the script and editing here, which make this finished product not only feel like a three hour movie that was hacked and slashed greatly to 96-minutes, but also an exploration defined by minimalized characterization and rushed storyboards that never offered me anything of substance to invest in the narrative. For starters, the movie feels like it begins already in progress, with nothing in the way of consistent development to these characters, and the dialogue continuously working overtime to paint a picture towards events and motivations that we never experience in real time. Because the structure of this movie takes place over seven days, with storyboards and on-screen text continuously conveying the passage of time, it proves how uneven these individualized days truly are, with regards to the allowance of material deposited to each of them, with the first five days flying by in a matter of fifteen minutes of screen time, while the final two take what feels like eons, in ways that brutalize the movie’s pacing towards never evading the boredom that condemns it. From there, the script shows holes of a blossoming romance between Bautista and Jovovich, but without truly ever committing to it, and this sentiment too falls by the wayside, as not only do these two actors lack the kind of palpable energy and convincing chemistry to buy into this angle that comes quite literally out of nowhere, but it also takes away far too much of the central storyline between them in search of this shape-shifter that falls out of the range of focus for roughly forty minutes of the movie’s second act. But the third act is easily the weakest of them all, as these series of heavily predictable and convolutedly contrived twists fall out of the sky like raindrops during a monsoon, and considering it conflicts the character motivations from scene to scene, making them feel like entirely different personalities than who they were just a couple of minutes prior, it makes me think that the studio decided to go in a different direction than what was initially intended, and one where an unforeseen developing conflict between these dual protagonists went the superfluous route without sacrificing the cool factor of a single one of them. This is most disturbing because once again Anderson has went the Rob Zombie route by casting his wife as the primary protagonist in one of his movies, and while I’ve typically reserved judgment on Jovovich for being the cause to much of the Resident Evil franchises diminishing appeal, here I legitimately feel that she’s giving nothing to the benefit of the role, with cold emotionality and line deliveries that feel like she’s reading them for the first time while grabbing a beer in her trailer. I can admire a husband who only wants to give his wife the attention that she seeks, but I feel like Milla was entirely wrong for this witches role, and her growing focus and creative dominance over Bautista made this film sink to careless depths that had me checking my watch every fifteen minutes. All of this wouldn’t be a problem if at least the action delivered, but Anderson’s commanding of the many sequences of physicality are compromised incredibly by the same anxiousness for editing and slow-motion captures that became a cliche of themselves by the fifth movie in the aforementioned Resident Evil franchise, here feeling practically incoherent with these abrasive cuts that continuously feel like they’re pushing the ten second forward button on a remote. I say that because the claustrophobic camera placements and choreography for the conflicts never feel like they seamlessly match-up with one another, with the hand-to-hand fight sequences feeling three different cuts of them that were shoehorned together to make what feels like one free-flowing sequence of conflicting coherence. The fight choreography itself is nothing special, often lacking urgency or vulnerability that would compromise the cool factor of these dual protagonists, but even beyond that are enveloped by this cloud of artificiality in lifeless green-screen backdrops and C.G mutants that have never made the textures and influence of a set studio feel more apparent. For most of these shots, Bautista and Jovovich are the only practical elements persisting in them, and this overwhelming artificiality becomes glaringly distracting towards investment when the obviously unfinished influence on some of the army antagonists starts to shine through on wide angle shots covering the complete magnitude of the devastation, in turn attaining an unintentionally hilarious captivity to the engagement that begs many friends, drinks and slow pause stills to fully appreciate the magnitude of the incompetence at play here. That aforementioned green-screen backdrop also produces this horrendously ugly color scheme towards the movie’s presentation, making the Lost Lands look plagued by an airborne shit cloud that poisoned its people. Part of me understands that this ugliness is intentional, as the setting serves as a desolate result of wars that ruined the world, but that doesn’t make it any easier to interpret on the big screen of a theater, especially when artificiality overwhelms the entirety of the shots solicited for the final cut, leaving ample excuses for Anderson and longtime cinematographer, Glen MacPherson, to not even try to find beauty in the chaos, similar to something like “Mad Max: Fury Road”, to which this movie wants so evidently badly to be a cheaply rendered version of.

OVERALL
“In the Lost Lands” finds Paul W.S Anderson stranded once more in the desolation of lifelessly artificial backdrops and frenetic fight sequences, whose only true victim is the clarity of coherence that completely annihilates the ocular senses of audience interpretation. Despite his immense stature, Dave Bautista has never lifted the kind of weight that he does while trying to carry this film on his back, but his Herculean efforts aren’t enough, as the film is a convolutedly contrived and hemmed down finished product that never finds its footing towards attaining a shred of meaningful momentum or urgency for its conflict and characters, making the 96 minutes associated with its progress feel like an unnecessary tax write-off for a director and starlet whose best days are definitely behind them.

My Grade: 2.2 or F-