Matt LeBlanc’s Forgotten Sci-Fi Action Reboot Deserves a Re-Evaluation in 2026 Because of Its Stacked Cast

Matt LeBlanc was a big star in 1998. Friends was in its fourth season on NBC and was one of the most popular television series on the air at the time and while he was still a few years out from his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his role as Joey Tribbiani in the series, Blanc was getting attention beyond the small screen with roles in movies like Lookin’ Italian in 1994 and Ed in 1996. His next movie role was set to be a big one: a big-screen adaptation of Lost in Space. LeBlanc would play Major Don West and he was joined by an absolutely stacked cast including Gary Oldman, William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, and Jared Harris. The film should have been a huge hit.

But it wasn’t. When the movie hit theaters on April 2, 1998, it was met with negative reviews from both audiences and critics. While the film did manage to knock the absolute juggernaut that was Titanic out of the top spot at the box office, ending its 15-week hold on the position and would claim the biggest April opening weekend at the time, the film ended up making just $136 million against an $80 million budget and soon faded from memory.

Almost 30 years later, however, it’s time to give Lost in Space another look. The film may not have impressed when it was originally released and not everything may have worked, but at its heart the film was an ambitious attempt to take a campy, classic story and make it into something more and it had the massively talented cast to do it. It’s a film that may have been a bit ahead of its time in some regards — and works today as a perfect guilty pleasure.

Lost in Space’s Story Had Its Issues But It’s One of Gary Oldman’s Best Performances

In Lost in Space, the Robinson family head off into space to help facilitate the emigration of the people of Earth which is rapidly becoming uninhabitable to a new planetary home. However, their mission is derailed when a mutant terrorist group, Global Sedition, kills the pilot of the ship and sabotages the ship’s robot. Things go further awry when the group’s agent, Dr. Zachary Smith (Oldman) is left on the ship. The Robinson family ends up off course in an uncharted part of the universe. It sounds like an exciting sci-fi adventure of a family trying to survive and make their way home but we’re not done yet. There’s elements of time travel, spider-like space creatures, and a plot to destroy humanity so they can be replaced with spiders.

If that sounds bonkers that’s because it is. It’s a story that would be perfectly suited for the sort of 1960s camp that the television series that inspired the movie delivered but Lost In Space takes itself very seriously — which is why Oldman’s performance in particular is an actual delight. Oldman makes the villainous Dr. Smith an over-the-top figure. He turns in a performance that can only be easily described as “hammy” but isn’t goofy or overly silly, especially when paired against the darker and more serious tone of the film. He delights in playing the bad guy here and it shows. What makes the performance particularly great, however, is just how he is fully committed to it even as things get very, very weird for Dr. Smith — I mean, come on, the dude becomes a weird spider mutant and Oldman still manages to play the role like it’s the most important role he’s ever had.

Oldman’s performance is even made better when you consider the rest of the cast. While Oldman is being unhinged in the best possible way, everyone else is taking things very seriously. William Hurt, who plays Professor John Robinson is a little too stiff in his role, but it genuinely works as Mimi Rogers, who plays his wife Maureen, is similarly serious and even Jared Harris, who plays an adult Will Robinson, treats his role with the gravity a serious sci-fi film would call for. LeBlanc is a bit outclassed in the film — that’s not a criticism of him as a performer, just a note on the actual massive star power in the rest of the cast — but when you put it all together the movie is a wild ride.

Lost in Space Also Had Incredible Detailed Sets and Practical Effects

While the acting talent alone makes watching Lost in Space very well worth it in 2026, there is another reason to give the movie another look and it’s the visuals. The late 1990s were a really interesting time in film as we saw some serious advancement in visual effects and Lost in Space took full advantage of them, blending the CGI of the era with very well done practical effects, real physical sets that were highly detailed, and even large-scale miniatures. This wasn’t a movie that leaned on green screen. This was a movie that built the sets you saw. A 70-foot model of the Jupiter II spaceship was used along with real smoke and lighting for certain shots. The ship’s multi-level interior was a full-on set. The coolest thing, however, is that one of the best and most iconic sequences in the film — the effect in which LeBlanc’s Major West’s helmet retracts — done without CGI at all. It was all in-camera trickery.

The movie’s plot and script may have been lacking, but the performances and the sets and visuals all were top notch. Fans didn’t appreciate it at the time, but now that’s changing. Each time the film pops up on streaming, it tends to climb its way up the charts. It’s just another case of a movie that didn’t get its due when it first arrived, but that we’ve learned to appreciate with time. And even if Lost in Space isn’t the greatest example of ‘90s sci-fi, it’s still a really good time — you should check it out.

You don’t have to take my word for Lost in Space being worth your time — you can check it out for yourself this month for free on Tubi and Plex. And if you do, hit me up in the comments to let me know what you thought!