| Movie DescriptionAn astronaut attempts to contact Houston after crash landing in an alien jungle. He hears a loud roar, and screams in fear as the screen goes dark.
Pompous paleontologist Rick Marshall (Will Ferrell) has a low-level job at La Brea Tar Pits, three years after a disastrous interview with Matt Lauer of Today became a viral video and ruined his career. Graduate student Holly Cantrell (Anna Friel) tells him that his controversial theories combining time warps and paleontology inspired her. She shows him a fossil with an imprint of a cigarette lighter that he recognizes as his own, she also shows him a crystal made into a necklace that gives off strong tachyon power. She convinces him to finish his tachyon amplifier and come help her on a seemingly routine expedition to the middle of nowhere.
Marshall and Holly travel to the cave where she found the fossil. With cave gift shop owner Will Stanton (Danny McBride) they raft into the cave, where Marshall has detected high levels of tachyons. He activates the tachyon amplifier, triggering an earthquake that opens a time warp into which the raft falls. The group finds itself in a desert without the amplifier, which can open a portal to Earth. They rescue a primate-like creature, Cha-Ka of the Pakuni tribe, who becomes their friend and guide.
The desert is filled with artifacts and skeletons from many eras, past and future. After surviving a meeting with a fast, intelligent Tyrannosaurus they nickname "Grumpy", Marshall receives a telepathic message begging for help. It is from Enik the Altrusian, a member of a race of lizard men called the Sleestak. He explains that he was exiled by the evil Zarn who is attempting to take over Earth with his Sleestak minions, but Enik can prevent this if Marshall retrieves the tachyon amplifier.
After several encounters with Grumpy and other types of dinosaurs, the group retrieves the amplifier. Holly learns that Enik deceived them and is actually the one planning to invade Earth, but is captured by the Sleestak. The others save her from being executed for helping Enik, but the villain—now possessing the amplifier, and mind-controlling the lizard men—leaves them to open a portal to Earth. Marshall, who has befriended Grumpy, and the others defeat the Sleestak army and confront Enik. Will chooses to stay behind to prevent Enik from following Marshall and Holly back to Earth, and learns that female Pakuni are very attractive.
A triumphant Marshall again appears on Today to show a dinosaur egg and promote his new book Matt Lauer Can Suck It. Left behind on the Today set, a baby Sleestak emerges from the egg. |
