| Reviews & Columns |
|
Reviews DVD TV on DVD Blu-ray 4K UHD International DVDs In Theaters Reviews by Studio Video Games Features Collector Series DVDs Easter Egg Database Interviews DVD Talk Radio Feature Articles Columns Anime Talk DVD Savant Horror DVDs The M.O.D. Squad Art House HD Talk Silent DVD
|
 DVD Talk Forum |
|
|
| Resources |
|
DVD Price Search Customer Service #'s RCE Info Links |
|
Columns
  
 
|
|
|
Lost Empire, The
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Lost Empire, a made-for-TV miniseries that has been assembled into a continuous feature for DVD release, tells a story based on the Chinese folktales of the Monkey King and his mischievous companions. In this movie, the modern world is in danger of obliteration caused by the destruction of a very important book: the original copy of Journey to the West, written hundreds of years ago by a Chinese sage who rebelled against the censors of his time. The only one who can save the day is the "Scholar from Above," a reluctant and disillusioned modern-day scholar of Chinese culture, who is drawn into the magical "Lost Empire" of gods and mythological creatures in order to team up with heroes from China's folklore and defeat the demons who want to destroy the magical book. I love folktales,fantasy, and adventure stories, and I wanted to like this movie, but alas, I had to conclude that The Lost Empire is just much too silly for an adult audience looking for a serious movie.
The Lost Empire does have some merits. For one thing, it's very exuberant. The acting is uniformly terrible, but the actors do all seem to be having a great time. The creators of the movie have shown a fair amount of imagination in setting up the situation, and in drawing on the body of Chinese folktales. Though it's a standard adventure plot, the setting and overall storyline do gain a degree of freshness for coming from a different tradition than the overused western European legends, which have been done to death.
The plot is, in fact, very much like an adventure game. There's an overall goal which is very straightforward (rescue the book), but in order to achieve that goal, there are endless complications as the hero must enlist the help of other heroes, who in turn must fulfill certain obligations, which lead them into further complications, and so forth and so on. The plot is made up out of story-segments that are added linearly onto each other, so it would be possible to remove entire sections of the story, as well as assorted characters, without changing the overall storyline in the least.
The Lost Empire is a fantasy, and uses the rather overworked fantasy device of using a character from our own world as a viewpoint character. Nicholas Orton (Thomas Gibson) is a scholar from the United States who is drawn into the folktale world of the Lost Empire by the appearance of the Goddess of Mercy (Bai Ling); as a stranger to the fantasy world, he articulates the audience's questions about the strange things he sees and experiences around him, so the other characters have to explain things for his benefit (and, in that way, for the audience's benefit). Alas, he overdoes it as the "reluctant hero" and becomes the "annoying hero."
The acting is uniformly bad, as I mentioned above. The actors are all very enthusiastic, resulting in very exaggerated performances, accompanied by a heavy-handed musical score. The dialogue is pretty awful, too, resulting in a general assessment of "cheesy" for the movie.
The Lost Empire seems to be aimed at a child audience, though it's not clear from the packaging that this is the case. The straightforward plot would be easy for a child to follow, or to pick up again if he or she missed parts of it. The mythological characters, such as the Monkey King (Russell Wong), are very childlike, while the modern-day scholar is clearly presented as a child's vision of a "boring grownup": the actor looks to be in his early thirties at the latest, but he makes a comment at one point about being "too old for this." The movie is not overly violent; the action is primarily martial-arts fighting, with a lot of kicking and knocking people out, but with no blood and little killing, as the only deaths in the movie occur off-screen and are done by the bad guys. All in all, The Lost Empire seems intended for the younger audiences, and in fact a child audience might be uncritical enough to enjoy the movie for what it is: a lavish spectacle with goofy characters.
Parents thinking of getting The Lost Empire for their kids should keep a couple of cautions in mind. Younger viewers may find some of the bad guys very scary: the demons have exaggerated, deformed faces that might be disturbing. Also, at almost three hours the movie is probably far too long for kids to watch in one sitting. On the other hand, its picaresque nature makes it ideal for watching in multiple sessions, though there are no convenient stopping points specifically incorporated into the movie.
Picture
This made-for-TV movie is presented in full-screen (1.33:1) format. The image is a satisfactory quality overall, with bright colors and good contrast.
Sound
The Dolby 2.1 sound is not bad, but not spectacular either. A better use of sound would have made the movie more enjoyable, as there are many fights and special-effects scenes that would have benefited from surround sound.
Extras
The menus are a textbook example of bad design. The main menu takes about a minute to appear, because you're forced to sit through a long opening sequence that is basically a trailer for the movie. You can't bypass this opening sequence, either (hitting the "menu" button again just restarts the sequence). The menu screen itself, when you finally get to it, is clear and straightforward, but the scene selection is annoying because there are no pictures accompanying the scene titles.
Speaking of bad design, whoever wrote the back cover copy of this DVD ought to be fired. First of all, except for "interactive menus," none of the advertised special features actually appear on the DVD. Conversely, the one special feature that does appear on the DVD, a making-of featurette, is not listed on the DVD cover. What were they thinking?
The 13- minute promotional featurette is not terribly informative, except to show that the makers of the movie apparently thought they were creating a much better movie than what they actually did create. It's not a sign of high production values when the special effects man starts talking about the great effort and research that went into animating the CGI tiger, and this research turns out to be that they got some documentaries off TV and a book on tigers with some close-up pictures. (The tiger was amazingly fake-looking, by the way.)
Final thoughts
The makers of the movie evidently had a greater vision than they were able to actually convey in the final product. In the featurette, the actors and producers talk about the movie's complex interweaving of adventure with spiritual and ethical themes and political satire. Alas, the ethical messages are limited to characters mouthing platitudes like "believe in yourself," and the adventure plot is strictly paint-by-numbers. It's too bad, because it draws on a great source for fresh and imaginative stories. As it is, adults are only advised to pick it up if it's a bargain rental for the kids.
The Lost Empire does have some merits. For one thing, it's very exuberant. The acting is uniformly terrible, but the actors do all seem to be having a great time. The creators of the movie have shown a fair amount of imagination in setting up the situation, and in drawing on the body of Chinese folktales. Though it's a standard adventure plot, the setting and overall storyline do gain a degree of freshness for coming from a different tradition than the overused western European legends, which have been done to death.
The plot is, in fact, very much like an adventure game. There's an overall goal which is very straightforward (rescue the book), but in order to achieve that goal, there are endless complications as the hero must enlist the help of other heroes, who in turn must fulfill certain obligations, which lead them into further complications, and so forth and so on. The plot is made up out of story-segments that are added linearly onto each other, so it would be possible to remove entire sections of the story, as well as assorted characters, without changing the overall storyline in the least.
The Lost Empire is a fantasy, and uses the rather overworked fantasy device of using a character from our own world as a viewpoint character. Nicholas Orton (Thomas Gibson) is a scholar from the United States who is drawn into the folktale world of the Lost Empire by the appearance of the Goddess of Mercy (Bai Ling); as a stranger to the fantasy world, he articulates the audience's questions about the strange things he sees and experiences around him, so the other characters have to explain things for his benefit (and, in that way, for the audience's benefit). Alas, he overdoes it as the "reluctant hero" and becomes the "annoying hero."
The acting is uniformly bad, as I mentioned above. The actors are all very enthusiastic, resulting in very exaggerated performances, accompanied by a heavy-handed musical score. The dialogue is pretty awful, too, resulting in a general assessment of "cheesy" for the movie.
The Lost Empire seems to be aimed at a child audience, though it's not clear from the packaging that this is the case. The straightforward plot would be easy for a child to follow, or to pick up again if he or she missed parts of it. The mythological characters, such as the Monkey King (Russell Wong), are very childlike, while the modern-day scholar is clearly presented as a child's vision of a "boring grownup": the actor looks to be in his early thirties at the latest, but he makes a comment at one point about being "too old for this." The movie is not overly violent; the action is primarily martial-arts fighting, with a lot of kicking and knocking people out, but with no blood and little killing, as the only deaths in the movie occur off-screen and are done by the bad guys. All in all, The Lost Empire seems intended for the younger audiences, and in fact a child audience might be uncritical enough to enjoy the movie for what it is: a lavish spectacle with goofy characters.
Parents thinking of getting The Lost Empire for their kids should keep a couple of cautions in mind. Younger viewers may find some of the bad guys very scary: the demons have exaggerated, deformed faces that might be disturbing. Also, at almost three hours the movie is probably far too long for kids to watch in one sitting. On the other hand, its picaresque nature makes it ideal for watching in multiple sessions, though there are no convenient stopping points specifically incorporated into the movie.
Picture
This made-for-TV movie is presented in full-screen (1.33:1) format. The image is a satisfactory quality overall, with bright colors and good contrast.
Sound
The Dolby 2.1 sound is not bad, but not spectacular either. A better use of sound would have made the movie more enjoyable, as there are many fights and special-effects scenes that would have benefited from surround sound.
Extras
The menus are a textbook example of bad design. The main menu takes about a minute to appear, because you're forced to sit through a long opening sequence that is basically a trailer for the movie. You can't bypass this opening sequence, either (hitting the "menu" button again just restarts the sequence). The menu screen itself, when you finally get to it, is clear and straightforward, but the scene selection is annoying because there are no pictures accompanying the scene titles.
Speaking of bad design, whoever wrote the back cover copy of this DVD ought to be fired. First of all, except for "interactive menus," none of the advertised special features actually appear on the DVD. Conversely, the one special feature that does appear on the DVD, a making-of featurette, is not listed on the DVD cover. What were they thinking?
The 13- minute promotional featurette is not terribly informative, except to show that the makers of the movie apparently thought they were creating a much better movie than what they actually did create. It's not a sign of high production values when the special effects man starts talking about the great effort and research that went into animating the CGI tiger, and this research turns out to be that they got some documentaries off TV and a book on tigers with some close-up pictures. (The tiger was amazingly fake-looking, by the way.)
Final thoughts
The makers of the movie evidently had a greater vision than they were able to actually convey in the final product. In the featurette, the actors and producers talk about the movie's complex interweaving of adventure with spiritual and ethical themes and political satire. Alas, the ethical messages are limited to characters mouthing platitudes like "believe in yourself," and the adventure plot is strictly paint-by-numbers. It's too bad, because it draws on a great source for fresh and imaginative stories. As it is, adults are only advised to pick it up if it's a bargain rental for the kids.
|
| Popular Reviews |
| Sponsored Links |
|
|
| Sponsored Links |
|
|
| Release List | Reviews | Shop | Newsletter | Forum | DVD Giveaways | Blu-Ray | Advertise |
|
Copyright 2024 DVDTalk.com All Rights Reserved. Legal Info, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use,
Manage Preferences,
Your Privacy Choices 
| |||||||