A 90's version of the original TV series/movie.  OK, here's the low down and then I will give my remarks below keeping all sarcasm and opinions until after (I know, not my style but live with it:) -  Earth is dwindling away to nothing.   Professor Robinson has worked with his daughter for more than three years to create a space ship that will take him and his family plus  a pilot to Alpha 1 where they will create a jump-gate  for ships to travel and repoplutae other worlds to survive on.  "Earth has 20 years left before it cannot support human life anymore," Professor Robinson tells the Major.  Unfortunately, there are some who do onot want the mission to succeed "For philosophical reasons," Dr. Smith tells us.  So Dr. Smith sabatoges the ship but is attacked by the people who have hired him to destroy Jupitor 1.  SO the ship fals off course and is soon Lost In Space.  No where near home.  Their mission: Find their way home and deal with their problems as they make their travels.

I went into the theatre with some apprehensions:  1) Robot.  He is completely different in this film! I love the orioginal Robot and to see him change to a machine that shoots weapons from various parts of him is sad. Sad, sad, sad.  Robot is not a war machine! But in this he is until the end.  2) Jupitor 1 has missiles and lasers mounted on it!  Sorry, I can live with the new design, but I can go without the weapons. It's a science vessel that was not designed to be lost but rather go straight to it's destination, they build their jump-gate, and mission over.  SO why bother with weapons????  3) The violence!  I don't remember the Professor and the Major shooting weapons often in teh series.  Here, they're totting them around casually in a few scenes.  Robot is a tank.  Oh!  And Will carries a gun around near the end as well. He doesn't use it - but he knows how.  Sad. 

That's how I went into the theatre.  Now, here's what I liked/didn't like.

Likes first:     I LOVED Dr. Smith!  Oldman was exactly like how the Dr. should be!  Really evil yet a coward deep down inside as well.  Jack Johnson played Will and he reminded me of the Bill Mummy Will Robinson from the 60's.  Matt LeBlanc plays Major Tom West who is, in many ways, an equal to the original in looks and in his authoritative manner.  However, he does want to shag Heather Grahams character (Judy Robinson) throughout the film.  (He does get a real nice kiss at the end.)  The rest of the crew is very DISsimilar to the originals.   I liked the FX in the film. In many places you can tell that it was CGI (computer graphic image) but overall I liked them. Except the monster Smith at the end.  I didn't like him. Way too CGI and doesn't work in the film, they just wanted to get metaphorical with him way too much - overkill.  The humor was good and well used.  Especially the Waltons tribute.  The soundtrack is phat too!  Eight techno tracks that varu from Crystal Method to Fat Boy Slim to Juno Reactor and Space who did a really good techno cover to the original LIS theme song.  The end credit look like a music video and are fun to watch.  The rest of the soundtrack you have 11 songs that are the film's score. It isn't bad.  I'll have it in a few weeks from work.  I also liked the spider things that attack the Robinsons and Jupitor 1 crew. The film did use the original voice of Robot from the series and the actress who played the wife appears breifly in the beginning and the original Major West appears as the new West's commanding officer.

The Dislikes:     The violence.  Robot.   Their use of time in th eliteral sense.  There is a time machine that Will makes (in the future) and we travel there to meet Will and stop the monster Dr. Smith from going back in time to destroy Earth.  Well, without getting into details, Young Will meets Older Will and when there SHOULD have been a paradox explosion at some point (like when monster Smith grabs human Smith) there isn't and the film suddenly lost ALL credibility with me.  Not to mention when we are told Earth had only 20 years of life left and we travel forward in time twice to a minumum of 30 years total, I fear that the Robinson's and Dr. Smith are not only humanity's greatest hope, they are all that is left of human kind as far as we know.  Pity.  I actually left the theatre commenting that the film was a giant rip-off as well.  All the best moments in the film were taken from other films:  Star Wars, Babylon 5, Star Trek, Alien.  Pity.   The only thing original about this film was the new look of Robot which I happen to dislike.  In the beginning I noticed soon after the sabatoge the lack of physics in this film when they chose to go THROUGH our sun rather than around it.  Excuse me????   Without a shield..not only should this ship have broken up from th egravitaional fields of our sun, but it also should have melted VERY quickly!!  Funny, not even one curcuit over heated.  For a ship with many failing operations, it handled flying through our sun at no problem at all.  Well, it isn't surprising that the film has all these bad points: Akiva Goldsman, the writer, also did the last two BATMAN films.

So, how do I rate this film?  Do I recommend seeing it or not?

YES. Despite it's many flaws, it will still proove to be an enjoyable experience and I do not regret it.  It was fun.  Don't be like me and become very critical of this film.  Or else you will hate it.  Just go in there for a good time.