Where I Watched it: Netflix
Audio Description Provided By Deluxe
Narrated By Roland Baer
God help the outcasts, am i right? This film is stupid, but let’s talk about that audio description first. I’m not a fan. I rarely ever come down on a narrator or description team, but this audio description doesn’t know what to do. Granted, neither does the film, but there are some key moments in which the audio description could have been better. This is a dinosaur movie of sorts, but aside from knowing what a T-Rex looks like, basically the other dinosaurs are just described as these terrible monsters. Cam we not figure out which dino is which?
That’s not to say that this narration is without merit. There are basically only two characters in the film, Adam Driver, and a girl who is essentially non-verbal. She speaks some alien language, and Driver doesn’t speak it. Apparently, on his alien planet, they had a Tower of Babel too, and languages divided them. Even he has some basic name that suggests he is a white earthling at heart, meanwhile his child charge has some tribal sounding name because he can’t understand her. She basically runs around the whole film saying “family”.
This is a really missed opportunity, that because of budget turns into some weird survival film where they need to get to the top of the mountain. Even though they saved a ton on actors, there are so many scenes with no dinosaurs, or some generic space technology that we’ve seen in a thousand science fiction films. This takes place 65 million years ago, and Adam Driver’s daughter is essentially living on for him in what feel like vlogs, and of course he crash lands on the planet just as the planet killer asteroid is about to hit, further complicating his situation. Because, I guess Adam Driver versus Dinosaurs wasn’t enticing enough.
This movie never has a single clue what it wants to be, what would make it interesting, and takes the least interesting route Everytime. It fails to explain why this alien planet is basically earth, but 65 million years ago, and wants us to believe that Driver would end up pretty much as he is now… just with the added benefit of steering a spaceship.
This may be about a land that time forgot, but it’s also very much a movie that time forgot. And the audio description is lazy. i don’t even know what the race of the child is. Does Driver’s planet have other races? it has other languages, so is his planet just full of white people? is this the original Oregon?
I’m all for more dinosaur movies, but this is an Adam Driver movie, not a dinosaur movie. Luckily, he’s all up in his starring performance, and gives some compelling reasons to watch him. But the movie is 65, not Driver. Ultimately, this is an exercise in how to squander your idea.
How to make a movie with aliens and dinosaurs boring. What an achievement.
Final Grade: D
