When we remember the TV programs we grew up with, we tend to either ignore or celebrate their all-too-apparent flaws. Hollywood, of course, has noticed the willingness of boomers, Gen-Xrs and younger folks to wallow in nostalgia through our beloved old shows. For the last 15 years or so, studio heads have shrewdly given audiences retreads of small-screen chestnuts in slick big-screen packages, and the gambit has mostly paid off.

The latest attempt to tap audience nostalgia is "Land of the Lost," a lavish, occasionally funny but mostly fatigue-inducing version of the Saturday morning TV show. It stars Will Ferrell and Danny McBride, two reliable funny guys who contend with CGI creatures and a wafer-thin script that literally strands them in a desert.

The first humble incarnation of "Land of the Lost," which aired on NBC from 1974 to 1976, is often remembered for its embarrassingly cheap special effects.

We kids forgave these flaws back then because we were hooked into the story and, more importantly, there were only four channels back then (maybe one or two more if you lived in a big city).

There remains something endearing about the show's unconcealable cheesiness because it tried to transport kids to a fantasy world despite a visual surface that annihilated even the stubbornest suspension of disbelief. Grown-ups revisiting the old show can get their nostalgia fix in a trim 24 minutes, which is quite enough time to spend in that universe.

The new "Land of the Lost" boasts a budget somewhere close to $100 million, which suggests no expense was spared except for the screenplay.

You can't blame the actors, who signed on for what must have seemed like the can't-miss success. But nostalgia alone can't support a $100 million epic, and audience goodwill evaporates once it becomes clear a movie offers nothing but a handful of set pieces and one-liners.

What's most distressing about "Land of the Lost" isn't the movie itself - it's Hollywood's perpetual strip-mining of beloved old icons. The "Transformers" films and the "GI Joe" reboot are based on franchises that began life as toys before becoming indifferently made cartoons whose purpose was to maintain kiddie interest in the merchandise.

The most egregious example of this trend is a movie in the works about the boys' doll Stretch Armstrong. Introduced in 1976, Stretch was a squat muscleman whose limbs could be twisted into pretzel-like contortions while his face remained heroically impassive. Stretch Armstrong had little personality beyond being remarkably pliable. Sure, he had a nemesis in Stretch Monster, an evil brother known as Wretch Armstrong and eventually a dog called Fetch Armstrong, but can you really build a 90-minute movie around that? The sheer number of additions and inventions required to pad a feature-length movie would easily drown any tiny flicker of nostalgia in a flood of popcorn movie excess.

Perhaps audiences should cherish their childhood memories while they can before seeing them obliterated in the name of commerce. Then they'll be ready if Hollywood hatches plans for "Big Wheel: The Movie," "Slinky: Stairway to Adventure" or "Cabbage Patch Kids: Seeds of Destruction."

Rated PG-13 for poo jokes, flatulence jokes and sex jokes.

One star. Lousy.

The rating system:

1 star: Lousy

2 stars: Horrible

3 stars: Painful

4 stars: Traumatic

The Movie Masochist is an emotionally wounded cinephile who lives in the United States. He watches bad movies so you don't have to.

(c) 2009, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Not for publication or retransmission without permission of MCT.