In the Lost Lands (2025)
Director: Paul WS Anderson
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Dave Bautista, Arly Jover, Amara Okereke
Primary genre: Action
Secondary genre: Fantasy
Based on the short story from George R. Martin (e.g., “A Song of Fire and Ice”), Paul WS Anderson’s latest comes five years after his last fun and underrated videogame adaptation (“Monster Hunter” (2020)). Anderson, always a visual director first, has a tendency to craft stimulating and distinct presentations in his films and “In the Lost Lands” is no exception.
A marriage of George Miller’s Mad Max landscapes, Zack Snyder’s hypersaturated sepia inspired color palette and Anderson’s own geographically and spatially aware stylish shots, you could say this is a winner, a comic book coming to life with passion and genuine enthusiasm for a world that is a cross between western, fantasy and sci-fi not far off from Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” series. Moving at a steady momentum, Jovovich and Bautista make a solid if occasionally uneven couple travelling post-apocalyptic, Wild West inspired environments inhabited by religious fanatics, crazed overlords, beasts and a few NPC’s who offer help.
“The stronger the spirits, the weaker the senses.”
Unexpectedly, the production design is top notch - as per every Anderson output - feeling more like a Swedish death metal band video than a fully developed and coherent story. Each shot - despite a very large amount of lens flares - is gracious and luscious and Glen McPherson’s digital and crisp cinematography causes the audience to anticipate the next scene with eager anticipation. Yet, for all the visual panache the movie puts forward, its characters are not escaping from the clutches of one-dimensionality. Echoes of Martin’s themes which have been explored in vivid detail in his unfinished magnum opus are all present here (e.g., religious extremism, subjugation of women, political wars) but have nothing concrete to stand on. Things happen much to no one’s surprise and any betrayals or potential grandiose conflicts mean nothing from roles that have a handful of banal exposition-based lines. This context wise is a dud.
Thus, “In the Lost Lands” becomes another Anderson empty spectacle, one which strictly relies on the charisma of the director’s wife (Jovovich who plays this type of roles in her sleep) and Bautista’s lone gunslinger. At this department he succeeds putting his duo in a journey filled with all sorts of dangers around some slick action sequences benefitting by ditching his frantic editing approach that he so much (over)used in his last two movies. You can’t help but sense though how the film’s budget restrained elements which would have stretched the story and its vast potential to something more meaningful and exciting but this is something we will never know. Amidst at least the superhero entries and increasingly laughable dramatic stakes of impeding doom, this modest action fantasy might be a pleasant and short break cinematically.
Empty visual spectacle
+Slick visually
+Great production design
+Interesting post apocalyptic world
+Good duo
+Anderson’s deprived frantic editing
-Expository dialogue
-Pointless reveals
-Zero depth
-Too short