Summaries

Synopsis

A meteor crashes deep into the desert near the town of Glen Canyon, Arizona. Wayne is a fireman trainee in the county and the meteor landed right on top of his car. Wayne was practicing fire safety drills in the cabin out in the desert.

Ira Kane is a biology professor at the Glen Canyon Community College and is a generous grader. Most of his class gets an A on their research paper, but Deke and Danny get a C- and Kane declares them to be the dumbest students in his class, as they did not even know the meaning of cells.The next day, college professor Ira Kane (David Duchovny) and his friend, geology professor Harry Block (Orlando Jones) investigate the crash. Harry had received a call about a meteor crash not far from college. Nadine (Katharine Towne) is one of Harry's students who is looking for extra credit to qualify for nursing school. She wants to be Miss Arizona, and says that being accepted to nursing school will look like she wants to help people, and help her win the competition.

Ira and Harry meet Wayne Grey (Seann William Scott) a fireman trainee whose car was damaged in the strike and learn that the meteor fell into a network of underground tunnels. Officer Drake (Kyle Gass) the county Sherrif says that the meteor went 80 feet into the ground.

They take a sample, surprised by its oozing blue liquid. Ira discovers that it harbors extraterrestrial single-celled nitrogen-based organisms that are multiplying exponentially. Ira also finds that the alien DNA has 10 base pairs, instead of 4 base pairs like in the human DNA.Within a few hours, the single celled organisms had already evolved into multi-celled organisms. This rate of evolution required millions of years on Earth. Harry is already counting the money he will get from winning the Nobel Prize.Impressed by the cells condensing millions of years of evolution into a few minutes, the two take the science class to survey the meteor site the next day.Much to their surprise, they find cells at the site have already evolved into oxygen-converting fungi and alien flatworms. They also discover the cells reproduce through mitosis. Ira tells Harry that they have to keep their discovery away from the Government and have absolute control over their research.

Meanwhile, Wayne attends his fire training test with Inspector (Richard Moll) and fails when he cannot even carry a fire hose up the ladder.Wayne has a second job as a pool manager at a local hotel. He finds the flatworms inside the water supply room and a hostile marine creature inside the pool water filtration system.

The next day, Ira and Harry find that the Army has sealed off the site and set up a base. They meet General Russell Woodman (Ted Levine), Colonel Flemming (Ty Burrell) and clumsy Dr Allison Reed (Julianne Moore), who both refuse to acknowledge the duo's role in the discovery. Flemming says that they found out about the meteor as they were monitoring Ira's computer.

Angry, Harry and Ira take Woodman and Reed to court for the right to be part of the research.Allison questions Ira on the stand, where he reveals he was discharged from the army in the summer of 1997 after he conducted an experiment in which he developed an anthrax vaccine and then administered it to nearly 140,000 soldiers. The side effects were severe (debilitating stomach cramps, severe diarrhea, memory loss, bleeding gums, erectile dysfunction, uncontrolled flatulence), resulting in his dismissal from his position as a top-level researcher at USAMRIID.

Upon reaching their lab, they find Woodman has confiscated all their samples and files. In response, they infiltrate the base underground to get another sample, and find an alien rain-forest teeming with life. The underground caves are now well insulated from the outside world and the access to the caves is managed in a way that no organic matter can go in or out.Dr Reed discovers the intruders and apprehends them. Their conversation is cut short when an alien insect manages to get inside Harry's body, but a doctor removes it through his rectum over Harry's loud protests.

In the morning, Ira and Harry return to the office to find Wayne waiting for them. He recovered the body of an unknown amphibian which killed the owner of a country club. Another strange creature appears in someone's house, but again dies.Ira and Harry theorize the aliens are leaving the caves and trying to adapt to the oxygen atmosphere. Ira, Harry and Wayne find a valley behind the home filled with suffocating dinosaur-like creatures, which they theorize cannot yet breathe oxygen and are escaping from the meteor site through the local caverns. However, a newly-born flying creature quickly adapts to the earth's oxygen, takes off, and terrorizes a shopping mall.The trio pick up shotguns at the local sporting goods store and hunt the creature. Wayne sings through the mall's sound system which draws the alien in, and they shoot it down.

The Governor of Arizona (Dan Aykroyd) orders Woodman to contain the growing problem. Allison explains that in two months, the alien lifeforms would engulf the entire United States. Woodman explains his plan to evacuate everyone within five miles of the infected area and bomb the aliens with napalm.They are then attacked by alien primates climbing up from the caves below the base. They manage to fight them off and Allison gets Ira's stolen research material back to him, joining his gang at the college as the town is evacuated.There, Harry accidentally tosses a lit match into Petri dish of alien goo, causing a red mass to rapidly grow from the ooze: they realize that heat triggers the rapid evolution of the organisms.

Looking at the position of nitrogen on the periodic table, Ira figures that Selenium might be poisonous to the aliens, since they are nitrogen-based, just like arsenic is poisonous to Earth's lifeforms. Allison tries to call Woodman to stop the napalm strike, but Woodman ignores her. Ira's students Deke (Ethan Suplee) and Danny (Michael Ray Bower) recall that selenium sulfide is the active ingredient in Head & Shoulders shampoo.

The team empties all of Glen Canyon's stores of the shampoo and also steal a firetruck. Everyone pours the shampoo into the truck's water tanks, while Allison and Ira get to know each other. However, Woodman's napalm strike goes off ahead of schedule before the team can try their plan, triggering the entire alien ecosystem to fuse together into a single immense amoeba-like blob that stands hundreds of feet tall. The giant mass begins multiplying through mitosis, which it would do infinitely until the country was overtaken by thousands of these gigantic creatures.

The team decides to continue their plan and drive the firetruck under the gigantic organism, where they find a rectal hole. Harry climbs the firetruck's ladder and inserts the fire-hose, pumping the shampoo in like a giant enema, causing the organism to explode.

Governor Lewis declares Ira, Harry, Wayne and Allison are heroes and makes Wayne a firefighter. Ira and Allison skip the festivities and kiss in the fire truck. During the credits Harry, Ira and Wayne are seen in a new commercial for Head & Shoulders.