I like dinosaur movies.

"Jurassic Park," "The Land That Time Forgot," "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" and "Godzilla." From the cheesiest "man in dino suit" romps to thunderous special-effect marvels, these films can be a paleontologist's nightmare but a filmgoer's dream.

Then there's Will Ferrell's "Land of the Lost."

Oh, it's got kick to it -- the kind that makes you want to kick yourself senseless for blowing your money on this dino disaster.

• CTV.ca Trailers: Land of the Lost
• Ferrell's quotable characters

Boasting US$100 million budget, think of this parody of the 1970s TV show as a dino-sized divorce. You know it's cost a fortune. But who is really the richer at the end of it? Certainly not those of us paying the price of admission for this fossilized hunk of junk.

Wrapped with all the bells and whistles Hollywood could buy, the "Land of the Lost" serves up an eyeful: Colossal creatures, bug-eyed lizard men, cavernous portals that transport us to alternate dimensions.

Yet this prehistoric extravaganza is missing one essential: A story. Any story, in fact, that would make us root for these chumps on the screen and not the dinosaurs.

Be forewarned: You know there's a problem when a movie opens and closes with Matt Lauer, "The Today Show" host, flexing his acting chops opposite Ferrell.

Sadly, that's the best part of this primal prescription for boredom from director Brad Silberling ("Casper," "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.")

Starring as quantum paleontologist Dr. Rick Marshall, Ferrell is flying high on a book tour at the film's outset.

He crows about his new book to Lauer. He brags about spending millions in taxpayers' money for his "out-there" research. And when this egomaniac pulls out a pipe and lights up, Lauer rebukes the scientist, an act that makes Marshall storm off camera and beat up a show producer.

As quickly as he can hurl a hissy fit, Marshall gets banished to a kiddie classroom by his bosses. There he spends his days fielding questions like, "Do dinosaurs have boobs?"

Yet things look up once a pretty Cambridge doctoral student (Anna Friel) shows up in class. Inspired by his whacko ideas, the hot scientist prods Marshall into picking up his research and proving his critics wrong.

Equipped with his new time-bending invention, the duo drives to a ramshackle tourist attraction out in the desert. Certain that its cave of horrors is the entrance to another dimension, they jump into a carnival boat manned by a slacker tour guide (Danny McBride).

Et voila! The unlikely companions are swept up into a careening vortex that plops them into a Bermuda Triangle of sorts dotted with Viking ships, Second World War airplanes, ice cream trucks and bad-ass dinosaurs.

With a little, ape-like man as their new guide (fellow "Saturday Night Live" alum Jorma Taccone), the lost travellers set out to find their way home.

Ferrell's shtick a prehistoric catastrophe

The journey, however, is so bereft of any real interest that it makes us pray for a worm hole to open up and carry us far, far way from this dino dung heap.

From the big, blood-laden mosquito that nearly sucks Ferrell dry to his bath in dino urine and the ape-dude's groping of Friel's breasts, the gags in this time-bender are as old and tiresome and a granny's ill-fitting dentures.

The question we ask is why Will? Why?

Unlike Ben Stiller's Larry Daley, the night watchman who tamed a T-Rex in "Night at the Museum" with wit, Marshall shows mankind's superior intellect in this way: He gets pooped out of a dinosaur's rectum.

He's slimed. He gets high. He almost masturbates to forget his troubles. Hell, it's a party for everyone except us.

"Land of the Lost" may boast big names and big Hollywood bucks. But its endless, toilet bowl humour stopped being funny a long time ago.

What's more this adventure lacks any of the real magic that made movies like "Jurassic Park" or 1959's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" so special and memorable.

Despite its dated special effects, "Journey to the Center of the Earth" rocked our imaginations with its battling, blood-lusting prehistoric creatures.

Thanks to Jules Verne, the visionary author who penned the book, "Journey to the Center of the Earth" left you feeling entertained. Like all the other great sci-fi adventures that came before and after, it captured that indomitable spark in the human heart to explore the universe to its furthermost corners.

"Land of the Lost" sparks just one thing: A boycott of any more lame Will Ferrell fare.

Half a star out of four