Product Description

In the 1960s an unknown event at the Sunshine Motel caused ordinary things in Room 10 to transform into items of wonder. The room and its contents gained unique and inexplicable properties transforming them from mundane things into indestructible Objects with extraordinary powers that are sought after by anyone who knows their secrets. Police Det. Joe Miller (Peter Krause) first learns of The Room when he unwittingly comes across the most powerful and coveted Object of them all: the Key. His life immediately turns upside down as his young daughter becomes lost in the room and Joe is the target of shadowy figures who will stop at nothing to take from him his only hope of saving her - the Key.System Requirements:Runtime: 300 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY Rating: NR UPC: 012236211761 Manufacturer No: 21176

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2663 in DVD
• Brand: LION'S GATE ENTERTAINMENT
• Released on: 2007-04-03
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .30 pounds
• Running time: 284 minutes

Amazon.com
If you're a fan of NBC's 2006 hit show Heroes, chances are you'll get a similar kick out of The Lost Room, a three-part, 4.5-hour Sci-Fi Channel miniseries originally broadcast in December 2006. It's pure hokum (especially when compared to Heroes, which rises from the same creative zeitgeist), and not nearly as clever at it initially seems to be, but there's something undeniably compelling about its premise, which turns everyday objects from the Kennedy era into powerful talismans of supernatural force. The present-day story is rooted in a dark, terrible, and cosmically reverberant incident that occurred in a remote motel room in 1961. Now it's 45 years later, and Detective Joe Miller (Six Feet Under's Peter Krause) has acquired a motel-room key that turns any door into a portal to "the lost room," a kind of alternate-reality no-man's-land, where his young daughter Anna (Elle Fanning, a look-alike for her older sister Dakota) soon goes missing. In his quest to retrieve her, Miller attracts the dangerous attention of various secret factions (with names like The Order, The Legion, and The Collectors) in heated competition to locate the many objects that hold strange powers and could, when gathered together, yield amazing benefits or tear reality apart.

Beginning with Krause, superb casting makes The Lost Room constantly engaging, even when its logic borders on nonsensical. Clearly intended as a potential series, it leads to a let-down ending where too many questions remain unanswered, but getting there is a blast. And while the smart, beautiful Julianna Margulies seems cast adrift as Miller's bland love interest (and a member of the object-seeking underground), the story grows increasingly intriguing with the introduction of a wealthy father (Kevin Pollak) obsessed with curing his cancerous son with the objects; an unstable nebbish (Peter Jacobsen) who's been driven nearly mad by his visits to the lost room; a devious doctor (Dennis Christopher) who falls in with a group of religious zealots convinced that the lost room leads to God; and various supporting characters (including comedian/monologist Margaret Cho) and subplots that lead you to believe this is all leading to something fantastic. That The Lost Room fails to deliver on its early promise doesn't mean it's a waste of time; it's got the same clever appeal as Heroes and Lost, and one can easily see how it might've made a more rewarding long-form series. Individual reactions will vary, but fans of supernatural sci-fi will want to check it out for themselves. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

I was impressed
Expecting little, I was deeply surprised by how good this Sci-Fi channel tv series is. I had no idea how long it was, either, having taken it out of the library. I stuck through the whole thing in testament to its holding power. The premise seems pretty original to me. Mysterious, a little Stephen King-ish from "The Stand" era, perhaps. The acting is uniformly good. Rent it, or borrow it. It's worth the time.

A well-crafted puzzle, and nothing more.
If you're the sort of person who likes puzzles in a movie strictly for their own sakes, then you may find worth in The Lost Room. The production values are good -- video is a little soft on focus, but otherwise it is pretty to look at. The dialog and acting are reasonably good.

This series reminds me a bit of last year's Journeyman series on NBC. It sets the main character in a sort of ridiculous situation -- jumping through time, but not randomly. Seemingly there was a purpose behind it. A purpose seemed evident, and some sort of mechanism was hinted at but never resolved. In the end, you have a fantastical premise, with characters doing their best to resolve problems within the strange situation they faced.

In the Lost Room, characters are not jumping through time, but into some other dimension and back to normality. Many devices exist that have fantastical qualities, used for good or ill by various factions. Two of the characters want to retrieve their lost children. One group has quasi-religious motives in obtaining these devices. Another faction wants to sequester the devices because they feel earth is in danger from this other dimension.

In the end, the personal drama of the main character is resolved. The ultimate questions about why these devices exist, who made them, and whether they represent an existential danger or a potential blessing to humanity are not resolved. If you can live with that ambiguity, you may enjoy the personal drama. For myself, I can't say that was enough to justify the four plus hours spent watching the series. I was hooked enough to want to see the end, but having seen it, I feel let down.

Mr. T would just say, "Ain't got time for no jibber-jabber!"

Shakespeare would say, " ...like a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

The Lost Room is not idiotic. But it surely does signify nothing.

Excellent Twilight Zone-esque Mini Series
Well, Sci-Fi made a good series here. I've watched it twice now and am still just as intrigued as the first time I saw it.

Suggestion to anyone who actually wants to see this film - don't read the lengthy reviews here which catalog the entire plot. Like Twilight Zone, half the fun of the series is trying to figure out what is going on and making discoveries in time with the cast.

So what can I tell you about it WITHOUT giving the plot away? Well, basically this is a mystery movie - and a bit of a quest movie, a supernatual movie, a light-hearted morality tale - guess it's kind of in a class on it's own. More importantly, I found it to be a highly entertaining, engaging series. Even at the end, you still have plenty of questions (which for once is intriguing rather than annoying). That, in and of itself, is worth watching it for.

So, symantics that make the movie great (yes, I'm trying very hard not to give away the story line).

Cast - Very Good.

Only recognized 2 of them with a few vague memory joggers, but maybe you'll have more luck. Leads are: Peter Krause, Elle Fanning, Chris Bauer, April Grace, Dennis Christopher, Julianna Margulies, Kevin Pollak, Jason Douglas, Peter Jacobson, Ewen Bremner, Roger Bart, Chris McCarty, Margaret Cho, Jason Antoon, Hugo Perez, Tim Guinee. The acting was really down-to-earth, funny when it called for it, genuinely sad or manic when called for. Pretty good portrayal of normal people dealing with abnormal phenomenon.

Writing - Excellent.

Characterizations were wonderful. Again, because they kept the tone realistic instead of focusing on the supernatural, you have both a cast of characters, and a "cast" of inanimate objects, all of which have stories you can identify with easily. I like the fact that inanimate objects had a life of their own. That's incredibly difficult to do and this show does it well - you feel curiosity, sometimes disgust - and of course the best part is, you can't help wondering what YOU would do with one of these items and wondering what the rest do.

Directing/Lighting/Creative - Very Good

The 3D in this film was subtle and engaging. Some new effects I haven't seen and all done in an understated manner that rarely, if ever, overwhelmed the plot or action. You took a lot of it for granted because it was combined with excellent lighting, sets and physical effects. Directing - I'm not an expert, but as the pace of these shows really moved while maintaing and ever deepening mystery AND while giving a ton of background information, I'd have to say it was pretty good.

So, if you like a new kind of mystery with a unique plot line and being involved in a movie (without being overwhelmed by deep questions, just tickled by them), this is a good watch.