Lost in Space (1998)

A galactic slump of a movie that stuffs its travel bag with special effects but forgets to pack the charm.

After seeing Lost in Space, my first impulse was to say that it had been made by a bunch of sorcerers' apprentices who didn't know how to tell a story with their high-tech tools. But why give apprenticeship a bad name?

The new robot is a disappointment. Instead of the endearingly low-tech fireplug of yore that warned Will Robinson of encroaching danger, the new machine is all bells and whistles and no fun at all. Kinda like the movie itself.

Much of the movie plays like a live-action video game, and the sequel-ready ending feels akin to falling off a cliff. But with its appealing mix of heart and adventure, Lost in Space is great fun for children of the '60s or the '90s.

Time-travel cliches... dialogue that's neither self-mocking nor serious, and an ostentatious though not particularly exciting production design keep the movie from taking off.

Once again an idea for a big budgeted feature film has been pulled from old issues of TV Guide.

Lost in Space glides along smoothly on special effects and punchy editing. At about the one-hour mark, however, the movie abandons itself to the noise, chaos and empty spectacle of the new-style Hollywood blockbuster, where story ceases to matter.

The overreachers who made this super-scale mess failed to realize one essential truth about great science-fiction cinema: Sometimes the low road is the best road, even in outer space.

These Robinsons should have gone into therapy, not space.

Lost in Space isn't so much a movie version of an old TV show as a mind-blowing, multi-media video game that threatens to blast audiences into submission with bleeps and blips, fiery explosions, clever gizmos and ear-splitting sound effects.

The movie's father-son dynamics smack of too much therapy and some of the effects have an insubstantial computer-generated look, but the whole thing is fun for 11-year-olds of all ages.

It's too long and a bit clunky, the special effects sometimes slip, and the plot seems at times to be made up as it went along. But Lost in Space remains appealing, with a great robot, a genuine sense of adventure and a good bit of ambition.