Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

The Land That Time Forgot Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 29, 2020

Perhaps both surprisingly and unsurprisingly, Edgar Rice Burroughs is represented as a source novelist in cinematic adaptations mostly for his many Tarzan the Ape Man stories. That’s probably unsurprising given the sheer number of Tarzan source novels and the subsequent films and television properties at least ostensibly based on them, but it may be surprising simply by dint of the fact that Burroughs was an incredibly prolific and successful author, and one might reasonably think that given the success of the “Tarzan franchise”, some enterprising bean counter in Hollywood would have long ago started adapting other Burroughs works for the screen. There have been at least a few other adaptations, including the relatively recent perceived disaster John Carter, but a generation or so before that film failed to connect with audiences at the box office, a much less fulsomely budgeted outing did at least somewhat better at attracting ticket buyers. The Land That Time Forgot is going to look awfully “quaint”, maybe even downright clunky, to modern eyes raised on bounteous supplies of CGI wonderment, but for those who have a certain fondness for what looks like (but evidently isn't) Ray Harryhausen type stop motion animation and ostensibly lower tech special effects, The Land That Time Forgot may have at least a few passing pleasures to recommend it.

The Land That Time Forgot was afforded a Blu-ray release by Kino Lorber for the North American market, and for those wanting a plot summary, I refer you to my colleague Brian Orndorf's The Land That Time Forgot Blu-ray review of that version.

The Land That Time Forgot Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Land That Time Forgot is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Umbrella Entertainment and StudioCanal with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Judging solely by screenshots (not always an accurate gambit), this appears to be largely very similar if not absolutely identical to the Kino Lorber release linked to above. That said, I'm perhaps a bit less pleased generally with the appearance of this transfer than Brian was, and so my score reflects that difference of opinion. The brightly lit moments here that don't involve special effects or other opticals do pop with considerable authority, with a nicely suffused palette and generally very good detail and fine detail levels. However, a lot of the more dimly lit material (including a lot of the interior submarine sequences) can look pretty crushed at times, with a much dowdier looking palette overall. Grain is quite heavy in the composited special effects sequences, as should be expected, but can occasionally spike kind of randomly at other times as well. The opening mist strewn sequences look just a tad splotchy at times, but overall grain resolves very well throughout the presentation, even in its chunkier looking moments.

Note: This is a somewhat unusually authored disc, at least from my experience with Umbrella Entertainment releases. While stamped Region B, this played fine in my Region A player, which is often the case with Umbrella releases. However, this release has no main menu, and simply boots to the MGM and Orion mastheads and then begins playing. At the end of the film things just go black and "hang", with "Play" still engaged, but nothing happening. You have to hit "Stop" on your remote or player and then reload the disc to start the movie again, if you're so inclined. The lack of a Main Menu means the Commentary (see below in the Supplements section) is almost like an audio easter egg.

The Land That Time Forgot Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Land That Time Forgot features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track that is obviously narrow but which has some occasionally surprising oomph in terms of some of the effects like the dinosaur sounds and other ambient environmental noises the explorers encounter. Dialogue is presented cleanly for the most part throughout the track, though a couple of individual lines can get slightly buried in noisier effects moments.

The Land That Time Forgot Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary features Brian Trenchard-Smith hosting director Kevin Connor. This is not listed anywhere on the packaging that I could see, and there's no Main Menu, so you have to access this via the Audio button on your remote.

The Land That Time Forgot Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As Brian mentions in his review of the Kino Lorber release, this film has brief moments of excitement which tend to be surrounded with much duller expository sequences, and as such this "thrill ride" is a bit of a stop and go affair. Some of the effects are charmingly old school and may recommend the film to lovers of the legacy of Ray Harryhausen (who did not work on this film, just to be clear). Technical merits are generally okay (video) to good (audio), but this release doesn't have even all of the minimal supplements offered on the Kino Lorber Blu-ray, so those with region free players may want to a bit of contrasting and comparing if they're considering making a purchase.