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The dinosaurs of "Jurassic Park" and "King Kong" may have been mindless creatures, but at least they didn't take their battles against humans personally. If you really need to see a giant reptile that's sensitive about his intelligence, maybe "Land of the Lost" is for you.

Dr. Rick Marshall (Will Ferrell) was once a respected paleontologist in the top of his field. But ever since he began speculating about the possibility of "time warps," he's been nothing but a joke to his peers, as well as the general populace.

After years of failure in attempting to build a tachyon amplifier - which will prove his thesis and open an inter-dimensional rift - encouragement comes in the form of a Cambridge student (Anna Friel) who pushes Marshall to finish the piece of equipment.

When they - and their tour guide (Danny McBride) - test it during a routine expedition, they meet the greatest earthquake ever known, leading all three to an otherworldly wasteland that is exactly what Marshall theorized.

Full of prehistoric beasts and life forms that are weirder still, the only problem with this new plane of existence is that there's no exit. But the trio has bigger problems, namely a tyrannosaurus dead-set on devouring them.

It's a toss-up which is the least plausible: Ferrell as a "brilliant" scientist, or the idea that somebody somewhere thought seeing the actor face off against a T-Rex was humorous.

Let's just say the dinosaur - dubbed "Grumpy"- gives a better performance, or at least a less static one compared to Ferrell's capering.

Friel's bit as Marshall's scholarly assistant, Holly Cantrell, is all right, but her inexplicable ability to translate the pseudo-language of babbling ape man, Cha-Ka (Jorma Taccone), is almost as idiotic as the primate's obsession with her breasts.

As long as we're talking about idiots, McBride is occasionally funny as empty-headed white trash fireworks salesman, Will Stanton, whose outdoor survival skills don't really apply to a landscape with a jungle, a desert and a volcano all within walking distance.

The 1970s kid's show of the same name may have been hokey, but at least it worked.

Even the '90s remake is preferable to this.

Zippy special effects don't really make for a better story, especially when the objective of said plot seems to be to skewer virtually everything that the original show's creators, Sid and Marty Krofft, stood for.

The lack of humor isn't so much the issue as is the type of humor.

While the classic show may have been aimed at 10-year-olds with a mind for fantasy, this big screen version targets the same children who have never seen fit to grow up.

With startlingly inappropriate humor that features dino dung as its least offensive gag, a family film it isn't.

Alternately, older viewers should beware that they're in store for a bombardment of innuendo-laced quotes, none of which are remotely clever.

Granted, such crude remarks work in other Will Ferrell movies, but they're so extremely out of place here, it leaves the film in its own alternate realm in the entertainment world, destined to please no one.

For all its faults, "Land of the Lost" potentially accomplishes one thing - its inability to appeal to anyone should send the message that if old TV shows are going to be remade, they should be done right.

With any luck, we won't see Steve Carell in a redo of "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters" or Vince Vaughn in "H.R. Pufnstuff" - more Krofft shows - come next summer.