In the Lost Lands (2025) A refreshingly middling blast from the past

Nostalgia can hit you when you least expect it. Just when you’re feeling a lull with the state of cinema, where long-running brands seem to be running shorter and shorter, when genres grow as tired as your heavy eyes, along can come a blast from the past to remind you what’s missing from the now. And in the year of our lord 2025, who better to bring the junky thrills of yesteryear back than the thinking man’s trashmeister, Paul W.S. Anderson? Forever shining the spotlight on his real-life wife Milla Jovovich, his brand of critically-panned maximalism defined much of the noughties’ snooty attitude toward post-apocalyptic horror in the wake of his Resident Evil efforts, and breaks from that format like Death Race and Pompeii were met with similar disdain. Yet he just keeps on going, Duracell Bunny-like in his unapologetically dorky artistic expressions, trucking on through to In the Lost Lands, which reads on paper like an adventurous new chapter for him. Its pedigree is high, taking its inspiration from an early George R.R. Martin short story, whose work deals at large in complex characters, sharp-tongued dialogue and twists that are impossible to see coming. 

Through the muddy rust-encrusted lens of Paul W.S. Anderson, however, none of those things are present. Set in a generic nuclear apocalypse, the world has crumbled into outposts run by outlaws, collectively known as the titular Lost Lands, ruled over with generic tyranny by the nameless Overlord (Jacek Dzisiewicz) and his Church. Introduced in gruff narration by Dave Bautista’s gunslinger Boyce, the tale draws focus on Milla Jovovich’s Gray Alys, a powerful witch hunted by the establishment’s zealots and consulted by the poor and impoverished of the endless wastes. A clandestine request from the power behind the throne (Amara Okereke’s overlady Melange) sets Alys on a journey to find and flay a shapeshifter so the powers that be are imbued with the powers of we…rewolves. Asking the tracking expertise of Bautista’s Boyce, they embark on a dangerous expedition into the unknown, beset by beasties and bad guys from all sides.

It’s somewhat comforting that In the Lost Lands is as stupid as it is. Anderson is no stranger to boilerplate material or hokey screenplays, and in that respect, he’s right at home with a fantasy world with rules as loose as this. The hows and whys of skinwalkers and sorcerers now running wild in the Fallout-style end times are irrelevant, and it’s a rare case of a modern blockbuster obstinately refusing to explain itself, allowing for a crisp 101 minute runtime that doesn’t outstay its welcome. There are fun concepts that are simply allowed to be here, unburdened by common sense or logic; the sidestepping of tying up loose ends lets the film show you the pleasingly intimidating sight of a spiky Mad Max-adjacent steam train chugging along in pursuit of our heroes who are then set upon by Doom-like demons straight from hell. It’s like Anderson is living here by the liberating words of Barry Norman: “and why not?”

Visually, Anderson has moved away from the hyperactive editing frenzy that made his mid-period films a headache to watch, now falling into the same brooding category of Zack Snyder, scrubbing each frame with a metallic sepia tone that brings out cool blues and sickly yellows. He has a good eye for composition, especially in scenes depicting pure iconography (green-screened crowd shots flanked by blasphemous Knights Templar in sinister places of worship, a rain-slicked confrontation under a full moon), but even more so when illustrating how damn much he loves his wife. So much of the film is dedicated to characters falling under the spell of Gray Alys, her gaze hooking into their minds in order for her to wile and wiggle her way out of sticky situations. You can feel his affection for the art of the close-up here, pulling into Jovovich’s piercing blue-green peepers and locking the viewer into a dynamic world of persuasion and possession, as well as serving as a corny love letter to looking adoringly at his belle. 

Jovovich as a lead remains quite inscrutable; stoic and stunning, sure, yet pitched at an even-handed monotone that never goes beyond what you’ve seen her do before. Compared to Bautista, however, she’s akin to, say, the legendary talents of Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence. Dave Bautista is the kind of actor whose skills have morphed and expanded from granite-faced beginnings as a wrestler to an alternatively comedic and villainous presence; from Drax the Destroyer in Guardians of the Galaxy to ‘The Beast’ Rabban in Dune, he’s always a giant, but his gentleness is always in question. His desperado character here feels like a role he would’ve gotten cerca 2009, before James Gunn saw a raw talent in him that spurred him on to learn how to, you know, act. It’s the first time in a long time that Bautista feels like he’s not taking a risk or pushing himself to somewhere new, and it may be hard to blame him; he’s one of the most in-work actors of the 2020s, and many of his roles have been burdened with heavy costuming, make-up and contract terms. Watching him kick back quite so lackadaisically in a slice of standalone nonsense like this is just fine, even if there’s not a whiff of his best work is to be found anywhere near it.

And that’s perhaps the refreshing anomaly of In the Lost Lands, that somehow played in theatres, flopped in theatres and now finds its way to what feels like its natural home: physical media and VOD. If you were to pick this up from a bargain bucket in five years time, or stumble across it on Tubi, you might mistake it for something like Priest (remember Paul Bettany vampire slayer? No?) or Daybreakers (anything? Anyone?) and even think it came out around the same time. Yet in this current moment, where bigger films are shooting for the stars and failing, it’s nice to see something playing alongside them that is quite happy to be mediocre and mildly diverting, harking back to a time where the film industry could put out ten turkeys like this a year without a care or worry. Maybe those are the real lost lands: the flops we dozed off to along the way.

Simon’s Archive – In the Lost Lands (2025)