Every so often we're given a movie that tries to pay tribute to the B-movie thrillers and sci-fi fantasies and film noir capers of old. They switch to a grainy black and white look, they try to match the costumes and the dialogue that gave those old cult classics their texture. They do their best to ride a wave of nostalgia.

Some might be expecting the same thing from this weekend's "Land of the Lost," so let's put an end to that rumor right now: This movie is not a fond tribute. Instead, it something far more odd and unexpected. It replicates the look of the old television show, all the while changing the tone, leaving the world to feel familiar but populating it with characters who don't fit in - who go so far as to make fun of it all. It's a movie that may well alienate "Land of the Lost" fans, all the while boring some newcomers who keep waiting for the "story" to start.

Honestly, I could see just about everyone hating it - everyone, perhaps, but me.

I sat through this movie with a dumb old smile on my face, entranced by the fact that the movie had absolutely no regard for plot, but seemed to be making it up as it went along. I rarely had any idea. Those going in expecting a resurrection of the short-lived 1974 television show, which considered a family's journey through an alternate universe in a rather serious light, are sure to feel betrayed. The weight of that story is all but stripped away, and this universe is treated instead as a blank slate - an amorphous landscape that can be twisted and distorted at will, to aid with the comedy.

It's a big-budget playground for comedian Will Ferrell, and his new favorite protˇgˇ: Danny McBride. Ferrell plays a hapless paleontologist who is a genius in the laboratory but a regular boob out in the real world. The movie opens with Ferrell's Dr. Rick Marshall on a book tour, fumbling his way through an interview on NBC's "Today," leaving Matt Lauer baffled at his stupidity.

McBride - who you'll recognize from his scene-stealing roles in "Pineapple Express" and "Observe and Report," as well as his gleefully offensive, so-crude-you-can't-take-your-eyes-off-him turn in the HBO series "Eastbound & Down," a show which Ferrell produced - also playing a character who resides at the lower end of the IQ chart. He runs a fireworks store and a "mystery cave" that serves as a tourist destination. Ferrell has come to this cave to test a new device that might allow him to travel through time. After switching it on, he, McBride and Anna Friel - playing the movie's rather flavorless love interest - wind up in a land of dinosaurs, lizard people, ape people and all variety of ancient puke, poop and urine.

So take that premise - stupid scientist, irritable redneck, and alternate universe - and you've got the general idea. Anything can happen - well, anything that would be funny if done by a boneheaded paleontologist or a crude fireworks addict.

Marshall tries to domesticate a monkey-man who serves as the group's guide through this unpredictable landscape. Marshall fights a dinosaur who ignores his comrades, wanting to eat only him. He attempts to track down his time traveling device, which for some odd reason - despite lacking speakers - keeps blasting music from Broadway's "A Chorus Line." He encounters a race of lizard people who, in low-quality plastic suits, thump around like zombies and try to look generally menacing.

We come to learn that various objects from Earth are deposited here - like an ice cream truck and a phone booth that looks straight out of "Dr. Who." There's even a motel that's been deposited out on the middle of a salt flat. As they come upon it, taking a breather, Ferrell and McBride are offered drinks by their monkey-man-guide - tasty drinks that turn out to be powerful narcotics. And for a good five minutes, the film comes to a halt as Ferrell, McBride and an ape man trip off drugs in the middle of a great salt lake.

That's the kind of movie this is.

I love the way "Land of the Lost" changes tones on a dime. We're in a serious dinosaur chase which then segues into a laughable scene about lizard people having sex. The special effects look pathetic with the guys in lizard suits flailing around, and then they're brilliant as Ferrell jumps off a dinosaur's tail just like he was Fred Flintstone.

The movie has no consistency whatsoever, no story to speak of, no real agenda other than finding the punch line. It's relentless, and Mel Brooks would surely love it. Lost in the jungle, Ferrell pulls out a jug of urine, saying that slathering it on will protect them from the dinosaurs, who no longer will be able to smell them.

How does he know this will work? Where did he get the urine? Why don't they just walk the other direction, away from the predators? All of this matters not. "Land of the Lost," a comedy that's rather brave in its single-mindedness, has only one goal: Get Will Ferrell to pour dino pee all over himself.

And he does. Twice.

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