Waste of ‘Space’

In “Lost in Space,” the Robinson family of explorers, a hotshot fighter pilot, an evil doctor and a robot end up in an uncharted region of the universe when their souped-up flying saucer goes into hyper-drive and catapults them far, far from Earth. Rated PG-13.

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“Lost in Space” torpedoed “Titanic” from the top of the box-office list, and you have to like the sci-fi flick for that. Aren’t we all a little tired of that big leaky boat?

That other movie was far from the minds of kids in line to see “Lost in Space” recently; they’d been anticipating the space saga for weeks. Still, youngsters were far from wowed after seeing the film based on the 1960s TV series of the same name.

“It was just OK and maybe not even that,” said David Corbin, 14, of Costa Mesa.

Friend Ben Jordan, 13, also of Costa Mesa, had a harsher take: “I thought it was really stupid, not good at all. It just didn’t seem like a big-deal [movie].”

Both expected much from “Lost in Space,” mainly because the trailers were exciting. Apparently the film’s creators couldn’t sustain that energy.

“It was slow a lot of the time,” David said.

“Lost in Space” gets off to a spirited start, with a clan headed by an egghead father-scientist (William Hurt) preparing to zoom to a distant planet to colonize it. (It seems we’ve ruined Earth, with the ozone layer on the verge of evaporating.)

The wrench thrown into these plans comes in the form of Dr. Smith (Gary Oldham), a saboteur who’s rigged the on-board robot to kill the Robinsons and destroy the mission. One bad thing leads to another, forcing the ship out to the edge of space, with everyone lost and fretting about it.

“I liked that they were lost,” Ben said. “But they never did much of anything great” once they were lost.

Heather Hernandez, 11, of Santa Ana, said the beginning was good, mainly for the special effects. Maj. Donald West (Matt LeBlanc from TV’s “Friends”) does fancy flying in a small spaceship, and we see several panoramic shots of the space station preparing for the launch of the bigger ship.

Heather’s interest ebbed after the explorer vessel is lost and the crew decides to investigate an outpost in an unmapped part of the galaxy. Even the voracious metal-eating spiders couldn’t hold Heather for long.

“The spiders were yucky,” she said, then shrugged as if bored when asked about the rest of “Lost in Space.”

Cameron Boyd, 10, of Orange, thought the spiders were weirdly cool, especially when they threaten West. Cameron enjoyed most of the special effects but was unimpressed after the spaceship crashes about midway through the flick.

A subplot about shifting dimensions and time travel left Cameron lost. When characters from the past and future interact after separate time planes suddenly overlap, Cameron asked, “Were they the same person? I didn’t know what they were.”

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PARENTS’ PERSPECTIVE: “Lost in Space” depends more on intense action and implied violence than bloodletting, and that was a selling point for some adults, including Martha Cantrell, who took son Kenneth.

Beyond that, Cantrell was disappointed. “The dialogue was poor; [the characters] were stereotypes, [and] the story was ridiculous,” said Cantrell, of Santa Ana. “I didn’t like it, [and Kenneth] only thought it was so-so.”

Robert Muglia of Costa Mesa agreed, also criticizing the special effects--which he and son Rich decided weren’t anything special. “We both felt they could have been more sensational. . . . With something like this, that’s what you pay for.”