I remember back when Matt LeBlanc was a nobody starring in the Married…With Children spin-off, Top of the Heap. He played a lovable loser named Vinnie who was a crappy boxer. I didn’t think he was much of an actor then, and I still don’t. Don’t get me wrong, he is great on Friends, but I don’t think he is really acting there (dumb actor that gets by on looks). So, as long as he stays within himself, I’m fine with seeing him in roles, but he should never try to be anything else, such as a spaceship pilot in Lost in Space.

In the movie LeBlanc portrays Major Don West, a last minute replacement pilot for the Jupiter 2 mission to Alpha Prime. You see it is the year 2058 and Earth is almost out of resources, so the leading Earth folks have decided to build hyper-gates to allow for speedy travel between Earth and the planet Alpha Prime where a colony is to be built that should allow for the survival of the species. Leading this mission is Dr. John Robinson (William Hurt from Dark City), a top scientist who has volunteered his family to go on the ten-year mission to Alpha Prime where they will build the connecting hyper-gate. The members of the family that are going are his wife Maureen (Mimi Rogers), oldest daughter Judy (Heather Graham, Scream 2), son Will (Jack Johnson), and youngest daughter Penny (Lacey Chabert, best known from her role on Party of Five). Not everyone on Earth is behind this expedition, in fact there is a group called the Global Sedition that seeks to stop the trip. This group sends in their top spy Dr. Smith (Gary Oldman, Air Force One) to sabotage the trip, which he does, but he also gets stuck on the ship as it lifts off. The sabotage is not 100 percent effective, so the family survives, but get lost somewhere in space. So now they need to contend with the evil Dr. Smith and still find a way to get to Alpha Prime. Throw in some nasty space spiders, a romance between Judy and the Major, plus time travel and you know all there is to know about this stupid movie.

Stephen Hopkins directs this poor remake of the 1960s TV show that was set in 1997. The special effects are good, but the actors and story are poor. LeBlanc really sucks in this stretch of a role. I never really watched the TV series, so I do not know how well they recreated the feeling of the show, but they tried hard by giving cameos to many of the original cast members. I do know that I didn’t care for this movie, and hopefully they will not make a sequel, even though they left that door wide open. Just three couches out of ten, and only because I enjoyed looking at Graham and Chabert.

Last updated: Thursday, March 20, 2008 02:45:13 AM

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