On March 13, the post-apocalyptic fantasy action movie «In the Lost Lands», based on the story of the same name by George R.R. Martin, was released. The film was directed by the famous video game fan Paul W.S. Anderson, which means that the main role was automatically assigned to his wife Milla Jovovich. The Kyiv native was accompanied on the set by Dave Batista. Read the review below to find out what kind of movie all this good company offers the audience.
Genre dark fantasy, post-apocalyptic action movie, western
Director Paul W.S. Anderson
Starring Milla Jovovich, Dave Batista, Arlie Hover, Amara Okereke, Fraser James, Simon Löf, Deirdre Mullins, Sebastian Stankiewicz, Jacek Dzisiewicz, Tu Lunding, Ian Hanmore, Evelyn Hall
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb
Amid the gloomy ruins of a post-apocalyptic wasteland is a city ruled by the powerful Queen Melange. But the patriarch Johan, who heads a mysterious religious order, also claims to be the leader. One day, the local witch Grey Alice is visited by the queen herself, who, of course, asks her to give her the ability to turn into a werewolf for a generous reward. Alice accepts this request, because she is not used to refusing, and plans to go to the Lost Lands to achieve her goal.
Before the journey, the witch hires a guide, an experienced hunter named Boyce, who knows the ravaged wasteland like the back of his hand. Together, they embark on a journey full of deadly dangers, during which they will be pursued by members of a religious cult guided by their own motives. So, the heroes are in for a truly hellish ride.
In the mid-1990s, English director and screenwriter Paul W.S. Anderson became one of the pioneers — thanks to the success of his Mortal Kombat movie adaptation it became clear that video game adaptations, if approached correctly, — are not such a futile endeavor.
And then appeal the director’s approach to the Resident Evil survivor’s slasher movie cemented his status as an expert in bringing computer games to the cinema screen. With the ambiguous attitude of fans of the game series and ordinary viewers to the development of the «Resident Evil» movie franchise, each new film was sure to garner good box office. This allowed the creators to revive the crowds walking dead and ominous «Umbrella» over and over again.
30 years after the release of the triumphant «Deathly Hallows» and an avid devotion to videogames as a primary source of inspiration, Anderson, and his consort Milla Jovovich decided to turn their attention to a literary work, for the second time after «The Three Musketeers» (2011). So instead of another monsters that have become a figment of the imagination of game developers, the audience was presented with monsters from an early story by George Martin, better known for his epic fantasy series «A Song of Ice and Fire». Unfortunately, nothing good came of this idea.
The trouble is that Anderson’s ambitions as a filmmaker are limited to trying to organize a movie attraction of very outdated qualities. «In the Lost Lands» — is a vivid representative of the mid-budget sci-fi/fantasy action with a minimum of meaning from the 2000s — 2010s, like the «Underworld» franchise (2003—2016), all kinds of «Solomon Kane» (2009), «Priest» (2011) or «I, Frankenstein» (2014).
Subsequently, this niche, whether they wanted it or not and despite significantly larger budgets, was occupied by Sony craftsmen, offering their Spider-Man universe, but how it turned out for them — is well known. We can also mention some «Bloodshot» (2020), since we are talking about superheroics, but you have probably forgotten about this opus long ago. And for good reason.
This is the kind of unpretentious cinema that Paul Anderson’s career is based on, even if it was shot in more favorable times. Unfortunately, the director is still at the same level as he was 15 years ago. Today, when Apple TV+ can offer a much more attractive «The Gorge», and Netflix allows itself to constantly waste money and, in particular, to be a waste of money, releases on the same weekend of a $300+ million blockbuster. Films of the caliber «In the Lost Lands» are simply uncompetitive.
However, even outside of this context, the film looks poor. If earlier Anderson, without paying much attention to the sanity of the content, could squeeze something really exciting, dynamic and spectacular out of the available material, now the Englishman has lost this skill as well. His new movie is, as usual, plot-wise primitive and schematic, but the main problem is that it is infinitely boring. The few action scenes here are poorly executed. Even the very mediocre kaiju action movie «Monster Hunter» (2020) was more lively and visually interesting.
The creators are trying to make a completely gloomy, pretentious post-apocalyptic western, but something went wrong. The pessimistic atmosphere of total devastation and danger lurking at every corner has left the chat room, not least due to the implementation of the local setting. Everything here feels completely artificial and formulaic, as if the story exists inside the cutscenes of, again, some ordinary video game.
The creative liberties that the screenwriters took with the original source material did not go well either. Along with the fact that they basically follow the original text quite accurately, there are new storylines added to the narrative and certain arches expanded. It’s very easy to explain: the authors simply had to make something up to fill the running time of a full-length movie. But this narrative stencil does not make the movie more interesting.
At the same time, the director does not shy away from using some small visual or narrative repetitions. Bird’s-eye panoramas are a must-have in Anderson’s cinema. As in 2002, the camera persistently captures Milla Jovovich’s eye in a close-up. Instead of two machetes in 2007, her character is now armed with two battle sickles. To a pathos soundtrack, she fearlessly jumps into the abyss in a slo-mo, just as she did 15 years ago. The tough warrior also burns monsters to ashes with righteous flames, almost like in 2017 because this time the scale of the fire is much more modest.
Milla Jovovich, after Neil Marshall’s cringe «Hellboy» (2019), once again transforms into a powerful witch, not to mention the fact that the name Alice is like a family to her. Dave Batista does an excellent job as a log dressed in a stylish cloak and hat. There is no chemistry between them at all, although in the same «Monster Hunter» the interaction between Jovovich and Tony Jaa’s characters was sometimes much more interesting than the battles with the creatures.
And Paul Anderson, who has uncomplicatedly decided to take the viewer with little blood in every sense, risks encroaching on the unshakable laurels of maestro Uwe Boll. It doesn’t matter that this is not just another video game adaptation.