Although very fond of the original TV series from the 60s, especially the first season, it is by no means a perfect show and is pretty uneven. It was great and more when at its best (the whole of the first season) but it was near-embarrassing at its worst (the second half of Season 3).

Still it had memorable characters (Dr Smith a genre landmark character),a good cast (Jonathan Harris is unforgettable),an endearing campy charm, a dark seriousness in the first season without forgetting to be fun and inventive stories and monsters that made the most of an at the time unique concept. There are worse TV-to-film translations around than 1998's 'Lost in Space', such as 'My Favourite Martian', 'Dragonball: Evolution', 'The Last Airbender', 'The Dukes of Hazzard' and 'The Avengers' (1998).

'Lost in Space' however is still one of those films that has its moments and a few good qualities, but one where it has great talent on board yet manages to make one question its existence. Before those defending the film arrogantly accuse people of being too stuck in the past and refusing change, actually there is far more to the problem than it being a disappointing adaptation of the show, in fact that's the least of its problems and while not a terrible film on its own terms it's a long way from good (personal opinion of course).

That it has a darker tone than the show, although some critics may disagree, is not the problem necessarily, and actually people would have appreciated the bigger, opened up approach (with technology having advanced a lot since the 60s it was necessary). The first season had a serious, dark tone too (even if fans remembered the campy charm of Season 2 and the over-the-top silliness of Season 3 a little more, judging by the word campy is often thrown around describing the show). The difference was that it didn't take itself too seriously and still managed to be entertaining and inventive. The film version, to me and fans/critics (this is what is meant by this criticism, so contrary to it being a seemingly misleading criticism it's a valid one to me),strips away the fun, loses the charm, takes itself too seriously mostly and has very little imaginative or original about it. It just felt charmless and dreary.

Not without its bright spots. It is stylishly and atmospherically photographed and the Jupiter II setting is very cool and the most imaginative the film gets. Some of the special effects are good if never spectacular. The music score has creepiness and gives 'Lost in Space' some energy. 'Lost in Space' gets off to a promising start and gives one the impression "hey this may not be so bad after all", and there are a few nice adrenaline jolts in the action.

Casting has its high spots. The best of the lot is Gary Oldman, who actually looks like he's having fun and gives a different, darker and more menacing Dr Smith and it actually works (even though wildly different). Matt Le Blanc may have moments where he's a little smug, which is due to him having some of the worst of the dialogue, but he does have a likable charm too and has a few amusing moments. Jack Johnson is neither too cloying or grating and the characterisation of the Robot is spot on.

However, the rest of the cast don't work. William Hurt couldn't have been a blander choice for Professor Robinson, he sleepwalks through his role which cried out actually for the involvement of Bill Mumy. On the other side of the spectrum, Lacey Chabert irritates to a mind-numbing degree and, although the film does try to develop her with particularly those video diaries, she is little more than a stereotypical teen at the end of the day. Mimi Rogers has nothing to do and Heather Graham also grates and has non-existent chemistry with Le Blanc.

While 'Lost in Space' is not a bad-looking film on the whole, there are a lot of cheap-looking costumes and some noticeably poor special effects. Particularly for that interminable Space Monkey (Blarp? who is actually for me far more annoying than Jar Jar Binks) and for Smith's spider form (some of the worst spider effects on any visual media, almost as bad as spiders from low-budget SyFy/Asylum films and the infamously terrible ones in the 'IT' mini-series). Really hated the end credits too, they go well overboard with the nausea-inducing surrealism and the overbearing music and as an epileptic it made me feel uncomfortable.

Despite some intriguing moments and sporadic amusing moments early on, most of the script (especially for the characters played by Le Blanc and Graham and in the third act) is in 'Batman and Robin'-like cornball and cringe territory. Target audience is an issue, being too silly and trying too hard and failing to be cute for adults and with heavy-handed sermonising and family values to appeal properly to younger children, who will also find some of the ideas (like the time travel elements and most of the final third) going over their heads (and no this is coming from somebody who finds children's taste and intelligence for film under-estimated).

The film is far too long and drags to dreary degrees in most of its later stages. Most of the time things are taken too seriously and fun and charm can barely be seen anywhere. Then there is the final act which undoes 'Lost in Space' significantly, where things just get weird, tonally muddled, nonsensical and borderline incoherent, far more so than the second half of Season 3 of the show.

Overall, not THAT bad but very lacking in most departments. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Here's a brain dead blockbuster which is pretty to look at but fails to engage the brain whatsoever. Fans of the '60s television series who are curious to find out how this filmed version holds up would be wise to give it a miss, as it's just an excuse for lots of cool special effects and not a lot else. Once again the plot seems to have been made up as they went along and is full of holes and indiscrepancies. Things get really bizarre at the end of the film, in which the script writers seemed to dig themselves into a hole and then decide to confuse the audience with technobabble to get them out of it again. By that time I really didn't care and was praying for the obnoxiously sentimental characters to get brutally butchered by a marauding horde of space-spiders.

Where to begin with the faults of the cast? (I guess we can't just blame the actors, as the dialogue and characterisation is terrible and contrived too). William Hurt takes the lead as John Robinson, and never has a character been so dull! Truly this guy sent me to sleep every time he opened his monotonous voice. His wife is played by Mimi Rogers, one-time star of THE X-FILES, who flounders aimlessly in a nothing role. Matt LeBlanc is the Robinson's pilot (he can't be a family member as you have to have romance in there too) and is as you would expect, a good-looking but bone-headed meat head who looks good in his space costume but fails to create a realistic character. Heather Graham lends her fragile beauty to the film as Judy Robinson, a daughter, but she has basically nothing to do in the story other than flirt with LeBlanc.

For some reason there are lots of extraneous family members added into the story in order to make it appeal to each and every age (we've got child, early teen, 20-somethings and middle-aged folk - what happened to the token old or black person though?). Most grating of all is the incredibly irritating Penny Robinson, played by Lacey Chabert. Penny spends the film speaking into her video camera and is played as a stereotypical dumb American girl. I was seriously ready to kill her by the end of the film. Jack Johnson is the annoying cute kid Will Robinson, the less said about him the better. The only character I did like was Gary Oldman as the evil baddie Zachary Smith. Despite the fact that he mumbles half of his lines, Oldman is still good value as the unlucky bad character who I ended up rooting for unsurprisingly. Edward Fox also appears to disgrace himself in a cameo appearance along with a few returning original cast members.

The action sequences are well-staged but flashy, enlivened by some excellent special effects work (especially the alien spiders and the spider-thing that Smith turns into at the end of the movie). Not so great is the CGI used to animate the space sequences which just looks tacky. The CGI used to portray minor things - like the helmet which rolls down over LeBlanc's head - looks much more impressive. Basically the film has no plot, just scene after scene of the family being menaced by irritating robots and aliens and fighting for their lives. You know already that nobody is going to die, this being a family-orientated movie, so that suspense is ruined as well. And whoever thought to include the obnoxious alien monkey should be shot dead on the spot. LOST IN SPACE is an extremely light weight, flashy sci-fi story with good effects but nothing else.

It's the year 2058. The United Global Space Force is building a Hypergate to travel to another planet. Wars have left the Earth almost uninhabitable. Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc) is a fighter pilot protecting the Hypergate from a terrorist group called the Global Sedition. The Robinson family (William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, Lacey Chabert, Jack Johnson) are traveling to Alpha Prime to build a Hypergate on the other side. Major West is brought in to fly the spaceship. Dr. Zachary Smith (Gary Oldman) is paid by the Sedition to sabotage the spaceship but is doublecross and left stunned on board the ship.

There are many things that don't make sense. Why send a family? The spaceship is horribly unaerodynamic which makes launching it like that really stupid. It's trying to adapt a campy 60s sci-fi TV show to be a gritty futuristic space action thriller. It loses everything from the original without gaining much in return. Matt LeBlanc to trying to do Joey by hitting on Heather Graham while her father is right next to them. LeBlanc's character insists on making jokes. Then the movie keeps taking dark turns. Just when things seem to settle down to a good thriller, they throw in a CG space monkey. Jar Jar Binks anyone? If Earth sent another ship, why not go to Alpha Prime themselves? In fact, why would the Robinsons run into that ship in all of space? So many questions, so few answers.