To prepare for Ferrell’s journey through dimensions we take a look at some other films that rip through the laws of physics!
The only person that should go mucking around with the space/time continuum is Doctor Who and Will Ferrell is about as far from Time Lord as you can get! Consequently, new film Land of the Lost sees the funnyman causing chaos in an alternative dimension. Ferrell plays Dr. Rick Marshall (Ferrell as a scientist…hard to imagine) a disgraced academic working in the lonely realm of a museum. His life gets ultimately more interesting when along with research assistant Holly Cantrell (Anna Friel), he finds a machine that makes time travel possible. Of course it all goes horribly wrong and Marshall, Cantrell and redneck tour guide Will Stanton (Danny McBride) become lost in a world where all timelines coincide. Time travel and parallel universes are great for fantasy and comedy films as effectively it means that anything is possible and none of the usual rules of sense need apply! This week Movies.ie has collected some other time travelling adventures to whet your appetite for Land of the Lost.
1. Time Bandits
Terry Gilliam has never been particularly restrained by the laws of science in his work it has to be said but Time Bandits gave him free reign to indulge his marvellous imagination to its fullest. The film follows a gang of disgruntled time workers; employed to fix holes in time and space, a labour dispute has given them cause for revolt and they decide to take a joyride through history looting and plundering. By chance one night they pop into the bedroom of 11 year old Kevin who promptly joins them on their excursions. The film is written by Gilliam and his Python partner in crime Michael Palin so of course is wonderfully silly, surreal and funny. The highlight has to be John Cleese’s unusually well mannered take on Robin Hood.
2. Back to the Future
If you’re a child of the 80’s The Back to the Future trilogy is pretty much the best cultural artefact there has ever been. Ever! Looking back at it now in fact is like the everyday version of time travel – the soundtrack, the clothes and the ideas of what the future will be like are all incredibly 80’s! Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd as Marty and the Doc take their time travelling Delorean to the 1950’s, an alternative 1980’s, 2015 and 1885, all the while trying to avoid creating a time changing paradox. This first part of the trilogy sees Marty travelling to the 1950’s where he creates havoc with his parents love lives (with connotations that are best not thought about really), invents rock’n’roll and introduces Calvin Klein underwear to the 1950’s.
3. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Come back in time with us, all the way back to 1989; when Bermuda shorts were “awesome”, school was “bogus” and Keanu Reeves was endearing. Yes folks, such a time did exist! A time before The Matrix gave him ideas above his station or at least when he began squinting as a means of portraying depth. Back when he made Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the need to be deep never entered his spectrum and he was all the better for it! Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Reeves) are complete and utter idiots who need to pass their history class before they can graduate from high school. A mysterious man called Rufus appears in their lives, giving them access to a time travelling telephone box (not a blue one incidentally) with which they can jump through history to meet figures like Napoleon, Socrates and Billy the Kid amongst others. Bodacious!
4. The Terminator
The poor old terminator hasn’t fared well over the past two years as the lacklustre third and fourth films in the series have been rather disappointing for the fans of James Cameron’s sci-fi epic. So here let’s go directly to the original film of the Terminator series. This is the film that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger as a movie icon and that set the time travelling trend for the rest of the series. Arnie plays the Terminator; a cyborg sent from the year 2029 to assassinate Sarah Connor, whose son John Connor will in the future grow to lead an uprising against the machines. As opposed to the other films to watch in our list, this is a dark vision of the potential of time travel ….it’s still fun to do Arnie impressions though if it all gets a little much!
Land of the Lost is in Irish cinemas from July 31st.