In The Lost Lands (15)

Powerful witch Gray Alys escapes the noose at a public hanging and grants the wish of scheming queen Melange: to steal the powers of a shapeshifter. Gray Alys ventures outside the walls of her fortified sanctuary, into the dreaded Lost Lands, and hires gunslinger Boyce as her sharp-shooting protector and guide. The Patriarch demands the fugitive witch stand trial for heresy and dispatches the Enforcer to capture Gray Alys, preferably alive.

LondonNet Film Review

In The Lost Lands (15) Film Review from LondonNet

For a little over 30 years, Northumberland-born director Paul WS Anderson has been orchestrating wanton carnage on the big screen with a heavy saturation of retina-straining visual effects and slow-motion action. Many of his pictures began life as video games – Mortal Kombat, Monster Hunter, the Resident Evil franchise – and most showcase his wife, actor Milla Jovovich, kicking the butts of human foes and otherworldly creatures with acrobatic fervour. The couple extend their cacophonous collaborations with a fantastical adventure adapted by screenwriter Constantin Werner from George RR Martin’s short story set after the fall of mankind, when the last vestiges of our craven race are shoehorned together in a walled city under the tyrannical rule of an Overlord…

The Game Of Thrones author’s post-apocalyptic yarn is fed into Anderson’s meat grinder and what emerges the other end is disappointingly bland fare, filled with bombastic set pieces represented as signposted two-word locations on a hand-sketched map including The Rift, Fire Fields, High Bridge and Skull River. In The Lost Lands is heavy on the eyes and light on the brain, with a thunderous score from composer Paul Haslinger to complement the blitzkrieg of digital trickery. Some of these visual embellishments are unpolished and unconvincing. “If you’ve got the time and stomach for it, I’ve got a story for you,” growls Dave Bautista’s gunslinger-for-hire in the film’s opening refrain. If you have the time, I’d advise you don’t invest it in Anderson’s picture.

Powerful witch Gray Alys (Jovovich) grants wishes to those who seek her counsel and she incurs the wrath of the church led by The Patriarch (Fraser James), who accuses her of heresy at a time when people are openly rejecting religion. The Overlord’s young wife, Queen Melange (Amara Okereke), entreats the witch to steal the powers of a shapeshifter – a werewolf – who lives deep within the Lost Lands where ghouls and demons scavenge for flesh.

Gray Alys is powerless to deny the request, or a competing demand from Jerais (Simon Loof), captain of the royal guards. With seven days until the next full moon, Gray Alys hires Boyce (Bautista) as a sharp-shooting protector and guide. The two gallop on horseback away from the city with The Patriarch’s sadistic Enforcer (Arly Jover) in hot pursuit.

Into The Lost Lands strands us in the fire-scorched wilderness with two-dimensional characters spouting clunky dialogue. The episodic structure mimics levels of an unfinished video game and the rapid-fire editing reduces some stunt sequences, like an ill-fated cable car ride, to an uncomfortable, dizzying blur. Jovovich and Bautista’s mismatched buddy dynamic is inert, and increasingly baffling as the film stumbles towards a laboured and nonsensical reckoning.

– Kim Hu