The movie was fairly interesting, it came out a year before Episode 1 and I was basically using it as a holdover until Star Wars hit theatres.
The movie opened perfectly. We get a cool, if contrived, star fighter battle between a couple of terrorists and our FIRST nostalgic character, Major Don West. A lot of the technology was just kind of stupid, no redundant braking thrusters, fragile complete glass cockpits which were mounted on a rotating gyro. (WHY? They're in SPACE god damnet.)
The next few scenes didn't go so well, they were basically character and plot expositions. I understand the need for this, but these scenes really fell upon the ability of the actors to handle them. And I got the impression from the entire cast that they just weren't trying. Gary Oldman seemed to be the only one putting any effort into what he was doing.
So the movie suffered from generally bad acting, fine. We can deal with just one problem right? Especially because the launch was pretty good, as was the robot rampage. Though Will Robinson being another lame "leet hax" cliche was annoying. But hey, at least the new B-9 robot looked badass.
It was also pretty cool that they got the original voice actor back to reprise his role.
The movie's pinacle came during the Proteus. This part of the movie was *really* creepy. The space spiders were actually pretty scary. I was happy when the scare factor presented by them didn't die out with the end of the mystery. (It's a nasty tendancy in some horror movies that the creature, upon exposition, loses its creepiness or forboding nature.)
Everything on the Proteus was really just awesome. My paticular favorite was when Don West started using that funky armor and blaster. For a few, precious moments there, this movie feels kind of like Star Wars.
And then everything dies again. For one thing, you do *NOT* ditch that awesome new B-9 for a scorpion/homage hybrid. (What the fuck does he need a weather dome for?) Nor do you force us to sit through the second part of the movie AGAIN, (IE: The character exposition part.) this time 3x longer. And because that wasn't enough, we THEN get to sit through an agonizingly half assed wrap up featuring a mutated Dr. Smith, an evil all growd up Will, and an oh-so-tearful reunion between father and son.
Yeah, Will is so god damn smart he can build a fucking time machine, yet he can't figure out Spider Smith killed the girls. For 20 GOD DAMN YEARS. And better yet, what's with this "lol mutated spider smith villain!" shit? Smith was *not* the villian of the series. He became comic relief and even a real friend of Will as the series progressed. Suffice to say, at the end of the movie, Smith doesn't resemble *anything* like his past self.
Oh, and if anyone else noticed, the sound editing in the movie was really, really, shitty. Their were a few instances during the movie you could hear characters talking even though the actor's mouths weren't moving. The soundtrack also sucked ass too.
It's sad really, the movie was doing pretty good during it's opening and during the fucking awesome Proteus sequence. Then it's like the writers stopped caring. The last half of the movie is useless and dull. The actors were hit and miss. William Hurt is normally better, what happened here? Matt LeBlanc basically got to play as, Matt LeBlanc, and Mimi Rogers well, she's never been a paticularly good actress. Lacey Chabert was inexperienced, but hey, at least she's really hot.
EDIT: Oh, and I wasn't entirely certain where this should go. I'm more talking about the movie's problems in writing and acting then in universe things. When in doubt, go off topic.