Lost in Space (1998)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1998
	Director: Stephen Hopkins (Predator 2, Blown Away)
	Actors: Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight, Darkest Hour), William Hurt (Dark City, A History of Violence), Matt LeBlanc (Friends TV-series)
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF
	Conditions of visioning: 06.03.2019, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Looking for a place where to escape from a dying Earth, the Robinson family embarks on a 10-year trip in cryo-sleep. But from the start it will not go as expected.
Review: This is the cinema adaptation of a beloved 1960's TV-show, well at least in the US, I never heard of it being shown in Europe (only much later). A series that was recently remade under the Netflix banner, which shows that its story has something, and I think it is the family-concept. Aptly named the Robinson, they are accompanied by a robot and a cold soldier, but remain a family and in the 60's series at least, this meant that the audience could connect to them as they would face similar trials, but in an exotic setting. This was true at that time when the television was the weekly rallying point for the whole family, this is not the same for a one-off movie, or for a web series to watch alone on your mobile device. So the movie has that disadvantage. Also, it is obvious that it was too ambitious for its time (only five years after Jurassic Park), especially regarding special effects which go from acceptable for the opening space battle to poor for most of the movie to awful (the monkey, oh my god!). Shove that aside (if you can) and I was left with the same impression as when I first saw it: a moderately nice little Space conquest SF movie which were too rare at that time with a few nice elements to it: Matt Leblanc trying to distance himself from his Friends character, a relatively complex time-travel story,  a sense of dream and exploration, William Hurt does his best, and a really cool design for the final monster (it probably haunted my dreams at the time of release) at least until it removes its clothes and shows its hideous CGIs. OK I am grasping at straws, the movie is difficult to defend, the latex costumes are so 90's, the family members are ultra-caricatural, the physics and reactions of the characters often don't make any sense, and the special effects are really, really difficult to watch.
Rating: 4 /10