In the Lost Lands Review: A Monotonous Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy That Got Lost in the Wasteland
In the Lost Lands marks the surprise collaboration of Paul W.S. Anderson and George R.R. Martin, where the title is based on the Game of Thrones‘ creator’s short story. But I already have a bad feeling about this one after I watched the trailer, and it doesn’t help either with its almost non-existent marketing leading to the release date.
My fear for the worst-case scenario is unfortunately happens from the moment the movie opens with Dave Bautista’s Boyce breaking the fourth wall, telling us that “if you’ve got the time and the stomach for it, I’ve got a story for you” and more before the title is displayed on the big screen. The dialogue is somewhat awkwardly out of place because of one huge problem: Anderson is taking it too seriously to the point where the whole movie feels dour and lifeless.
Back to the story, we are then introduced to Gray Alys (Milla Jovovich), a witch being condemned as a heretic and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence is carried out by the religious cult’s right-hand woman Ash (Arly Jover) to make sure that the witch is dead. But somehow Gray manages to escape using her power of mind control and soon, we learn the queen (Amara Okereke) approaches her and summons her for a task: head to the Lost Lands, track down a shapeshifter capable of transforming into a werewolf and bring back the power.
And so, the journey begins as Gray enlists the help of Boyce, a gunslinger in charge of guiding the way and also served as her protector (don’t ask). The road to the barren wasteland reminds me of Mad Max, except that Anderson favours a shoddy-looking green screen background and constantly distracting lighting effects. The glaringly artificial environment is immediately a turn-off and the over-reliance of subpar CGI makes things worse than they already are.
The movie primarily focuses on the interaction between Jovovich’s Gray and Bautista’s Boyce, which means their chemistry matters a lot to make it work. But too bad that doesn’t happen, despite Jovovich displaying her usual tough-girl screen presence and Bautista with his familiar stoic, no-nonsense persona. But they are ultimately hampered by clunky dialogue and little materials to work with.
The only thing I like about them is their physically demanding performances, which in turn, allows Anderson to showcase some highly-stylised action set pieces that are synonymous with his works since his Mortal Kombat era. It’s a good thing that he doesn’t resort to the choppy editing and epilepsy-inducing camerawork seen in his Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. Instead, the action is crisply shot with a mix of slow-motion, notably on the fight in and above the suspended cable car — an old school bus, to be exact — as Gray and Boyce try to fend off the enemies. It was easily the best action scene in the movie but moments like this are sadly few and far between.
The movie’s 101-minute running time may seem like a blessing for not clocking above the two-hour length, which can be easily labelled as “overlong” or “overstay its welcome”. But even so, Constantin Werner’s flimsy screenplay is all surface-level storytelling with no real depth. The pace is erratic as Anderson relies heavily on the stop-start momentum to move the story along. Whenever the action stops, the movie looks like it got disappeared in the lost lands (no pun intended) with one expository-heavy scenario after another. Anderson’s Mad Max-style aesthetics are laughably bad with visually flat cinematography.
In the Lost Lands is so bad that it doesn’t even qualify as a guilty-pleasure entertainment, where you just leave your brain at the door and just enjoy the show. By the time the movie concludes with a third-act twist I didn’t see coming, it barely matters anyway. After the double-whammy Resident Evil: The Final Chapter and Monster Hunter, In the Lost Lands is yet another failure coming from Paul W.S. Anderson. Not to mention a place in the hall land of shame as one of the worst movies of 2025.
