Sometimes it’s clear from the start that a movie isn’t going to be a good experience. Openings are an opportunity to not only set expectations that will color the rest of the film, but to reset the audience. A great opening can convince us to set down whatever state of mind we’ve brought in with us that day and attune ourselves to this new wavelength for a while. A bad one can be a tough impression to shake.

So, when In the Lost Lands began with Dave Bautista looking into the camera and offering (if we “have the time and the stomach for it“) to tell us a story that “is no fairy tale” and has “no happy endings,” I got nervous. When the first scene was laced with clunky, expository dialogue, those nerves settled in my gut. And when I could tell after a few minutes that this sludgy, lifeless aesthetic was here to stay, my heart sank to join them.

Most people, when confronted with a bad opening, would be weighing whether to leave the theater or (a much simpler call) turn the movie off and queue up something else. Since I was strapped in for the full ride by professional obligation, I could only cling to hope for improvement. Unfortunately, Bautista’s intro proved prophetic – this film offered me no happy endings.

In The Lost Lands Has Too Much Plot For Its Own Good

Even A Summary Will Feel Breathless

I’ll try to summarize what’s going on here in terms of story, but one of the key weaknesses of In the Lost Lands is that it needs quite a lot of set-up to function at all. Based on a short story by George R.R. Martin, the movie takes place in a world that was once ours but was long ago ravaged by war. Human civilization has been reduced to a single, Mad Max-ian city, where the vast majority of people seemed condemned to swing pickaxes all day.

The Overlord (Jacek Dzisiewicz) of this city is infirm, and a power struggle looms between Queen Melange (Amara Okereke), who hates her husband, and Patriarch Johan (Fraser James), whose oppressive, violent church seems like the real authority here. A wild card in this political powder keg is Gray Alys (Milla Jovovich), a witch who grants wishes (that everyone seems to know are Monkey Paw wishes but pursues anyway) and refuses no one, who is revered by the city’s downtrodden populace. The church, of course, can’t have that; In the Lost Lands opens with Gray Alys’ (attempted) execution.

Shortly after Alys dodges her own hanging, the Queen becomes a customer. She asks the witch for the ability to transform into a wolf, a rare power that can be found in the Lost Lands (i.e. everything that isn’t the city). To grant her request, Alys must journey beyond the city limits, find such a shapeshifter, and take their power. To do that, she enlists the services of Boyce (Bautista), a hunter, experienced traveler, and Gunslinger-type, because In the Lost Lands is Western-inflected as well as Medieval-inspired.

Boyce knows of a werewolf encamped at Skull River, and the two outlaws set off for this place no one ever returns from. Pursuing them is Ash (Arly Jover), the Patriarch’s zealot Enforcer, on the church’s big, evil train. They have heard the Queen sought out Gray Alys, and if they can secure the witch’s confession, they can topple Melange before she consolidates too much power.

A detail crucial to the maneuverings back home: Boyce is the secret lover of the Queen, who taunts her husband with her infidelity. And another detail, crucial to the quest: Jerais (Simon Lööf), the Queen’s loyal Captain of the Overwatch, who loves her a bit too much, made his own bargain with Alys. He asked that the Queen’s wish fail to come true.

All of this is established in the first 20 minutes or so before the adventure even begins. It is as cluttered as it sounds. I thought to myself multiple times that In the Lost Lands feels like someone tried to condense a multi-episode miniseries into a feature film, racing from plot point to plot point at the expense of anything that might’ve made me care about this narrative. The characters are mostly hollow, brittle shells, made up to resemble recognizable types and given no further thought.

In The Lost Lands’ Problems Don’t End With The Script

Aside From Dave Bautista, This Movie’s An All-Around Failure

The script may be the film’s rotten foundation, but no one element can take all the blame for its emptiness. Director Paul W.S. Anderson’s visual approach and the breakneck pace support In the Lost Lands being structured as an unending stream of supposedly “cool” things, maybe 10% of which actually land that way. This is my first foray into Anderson’s work, so I can’t comment on how this fits with his personal style, but it felt to me like someone trying to copy Zack Snyder’s already middling homework and getting what he does do well totally wrong.

Jovovich was also a fundamental problem for me. I’m generally forgiving of actors given so little to work with, and most of the cast are powerless against the awkwardness of this material, but her emotional characterization of Gray Alys left me actively confused. This witch is the heart of the film, and unlike everyone else, I could not get a grip on how In the Lost Lands wants us to relate to her. A little consistency in her performance would’ve gone a long way toward giving me something to hold onto.

Bautista is the only one who manages to shine through, in the rare moments of human tenderness his character is afforded. I can see what would draw him to this role, at least in the abstract. He’s an easy sell as an action hero and he occasionally channels Dune‘s animalistic rage here, but he’s able to tap into a well of melancholy that gives his lone gunman an extra dimension. With a better film around him, he could do something with this archetype.

But Boyce’s emotional arc is as muddled as Alys’, especially by the end. In the Lost Lands goes for some last-act reveals (in the same rapid-fire succession of all its storytelling) that land as truly nonsensical, and actually illustrate the importance of character very well. A twist might “make sense” for the plot, but if it doesn’t cohere at the level of character, it just doesn’t work. And an ending like that, after everything that came before, leaves me with only one recommendation: don’t waste your time.