In The Lost Lands

Go Ask Alys

In The Lost Lands
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
Germany/Canada/USA 2025
Constantin Film
UK Cinema release print

Warning: Some spoilers.

This film is better than I thought it would be. I quite like director Paul W. S. Anderson’s movies but I find him a bit hit and miss. He seems to produce, write and direct a lot of films starring his wife Milla Jovovich and here she stars as the main character, Gray Alys, in his adaptation of George R. R. Martin’s short story In The Lost Lands. I’m used to some of the invention found in Martin’s Wild Cards mosaic novels and you can find my reviews of some of the more recent tomes in that series in my book section of the index page of this blog. I haven’t read this one though so, I can’t tell how good of an adaptation it is. I would assume though, since it’s a short story, that it is at the very least an expansion of the original material.

Gray Alys is a witch (a real one with real magical powers) who has lived for hundreds of years after the world as we know it has been wiped out. Yeah, that’s right, it’s a post apocalyptic spin on the heroic fantasy genre. In this future, everyone on the planet lives in one city, ruled jointly by a vindictive and evil religion (presumably Christian or Catholic or, probably a blend of both) plus the true Overlord and his Queen (played by Amara Okereke). And of course, the church wants all the power and are trying to seem subservient to the ‘royalty’ while looking for opportunities to seize the throne.

But the queen wants something, so she goes to Alys (who has already escaped being hung by the lead enforcer of the church, played by Arly Jover, at the start of the movie) to hire her to bring her the power to become a shape shifting werewolf. So Alys hires a hunter and guide, played by one of this generation’s undersung actors, David Bautista... and they go into the lost lands (where the ruined tower blocks and power plants of the former civilisation still stand) to kill a fierce werewolf who lives in the wilderness, so Alys can steal his power with her supernatural ways, to bestow upon the queen. And, of course, the church enforcer is hot on their heels, adding to their opponents along with a bunch of demons and so on.

But nothing is quite as it seems and, as Gray Alys warns every customer who she agrees to help, there are always consequences to the desires of those who seek her out. Which leads to a very nice narrative twist near the end of the film that I actually didn’t see coming.

And it’s a pretty well crafted movie. Lovers of both Italian post-apocalyptic movies of the 1980s and various heroic fantasy movies will more than likely find this one to be quite a nice entry into those sub-genres. Jovovich, Bautista and their supporting cast are all absolutely brilliant in this, with the enforcer being a character you will quickly learn to hate. So you’ll be rooting for them through the whole movie but, yeah, it has many twists and turns and all of Alys’ customers are somewhat surprised as to where their requests lead them. 

And, typically for a film from this husband and wife directing/acting team, it’s filled full of action and with the odd nice idea thrown in to keep the ‘road movie’ quest narrative lively and never dull. There are a few silly bits thrown in for good measure too. For instance, when the two leads are fighting for their lives in and on the top of an old, moving cable car, a few religious villains have jumped onto the car before it makes its trip... this doesn’t stop them somehow having to fight around twenty of said villains who seem to keep springing from the roof or sides of the car. I guess this is the modern equivalent of... ‘don’t count the shots in those old Westerns where they’re using six shooters’... just go with the vast numbers and have some fun.

My one big problem with it, which is completely conjecture but I suspect I’m right... is that you can tell the film has had its conclusion altered to fit ‘happy ending’ Hollywood expectations. The ending is grim and ugly... and then suddenly freezes frame and cuts away to a more agreeable resolution for the two main characters. Using, if I’m not mistaken, footage of them culled from material shot for earlier scenes in the film. Which is a shame because, it’s a rubbish ending which allows for a sequel but feels like it betrays the story somewhat.

Other than this slight crimp, though, I thought In The Lost Lands was a fine film in its genre with stand out performances, surprisingly competent and understandable editing (albeit the constant adding of villains where they couldn’t be in that cable car scene), a nice gimmick of visually counting down the number of days to the full moon (Alys’ self imposed deadline to coincide with the shape shifter’s rota) and a nice score by ex-Tangerine Dream member Paul Haslinger which, surprise surprise, hasn’t been given a proper CD release at time of writing. But the film is nicely done so maybe add this one to your list.