In a parallel universe where oddness is the norm, Will Ferrell should feel right at home. Instead, he's swamped by big-budget effects in this comedy based on an old 1970s US TV show. Ferrell plays a disgraced scientist who tears a hole in the space-time continuum and enters a wilderness inhabited by dinosaurs and lizard-men. Anna Friel does her cute-face routine as the research assistant who goes with him through the portal, along with Danny McBride as the requisite foul-mouthed slob whose coarse humour, albeit vaguely amusing, doesn't make for ideal family entertainment. There isn't much of a story, either, just a lot of running and screaming. Although Ferrell does imprint some of these moments with his trademark brand of surreal silliness, too often it feels like he's just marking time.

On his latest expedition, has-been scientist Dr. Rick Marshall is sucked into a space-time vortex alongside his crack-smart research assistant Holly and redneck survivalist Will into a world populated by marauding dinosaurs and painfully slow creatures called Sleestaks. With no weapons, few skills and questionable smarts, the trio must rely on their only ally, a primate named Chaka, to try to survive long enough to figure out a way back home.