In medieval England, a dragon lays waste to a town, and in response, six knights vow to strike at the creature in its lair. In the clash that follows, the dragon hurls a fireball at barrels of gunpowder, triggering a massive explosion that caves in and traps the dragon along with five of the knights.
A thousand years later, the desert near California hosts a secret underground research facility where scientists clone endangered or extinct animals. Captain David Carver arrives to take on security duties, and he is introduced to the crew: Captain Sergei Petrov, Dr. Meredith Winter, Dr. Greg Travis, Kevin Korisch, and Bailey Kent. The facility’s cook, Cookie, is also part of the team. The mood shifts when Dr. Ian Drackovitch reveals that he has uncovered remains of a winged creature and orders the fossils sealed in a cloning chamber, predicting that the full animal could reform within 24 hours.
Remarkably, the cloning process completes in just three hours. Ian sends two scientists into the chamber to retrieve the specimen, but an explosion tears through the room. The cloned dragon bursts through a hidden passage into an underground basement, and David and Dr. Greg Travis find the charred remains of the two researchers.
Greg is killed by the dragon, and bullets do little to deter it. David and Captain Sergei Petrov try to reach the elevator to escape, but the back hallway explodes, taking Sergei with it. With the dragon triggering a facility-wide lockdown, the humans are trapped with it. The creature is warm-blooded, much like dinosaurs, so the team must cool the environment to keep it from pressuring the elevator. To do this, they need access to a laptop in Kevin Korisch’s room, and David orders Kevin to come along—though Kevin would rather stay. The dragon eventually consumes Kevin before they can complete the plan.
David returns with the damaged laptop and downloads the required data to access the mainframe. Ian, losing his grip, starts shooting the mainframe, triggering a self-destruct sequence that will blow the facility in minutes. Evading the dragon, David navigates a vent and manually reboots the elevator system, allowing the remaining survivors to sprint to safety before the base explodes.
Inside the elevator, the dragon fries the cables, trapping everyone. Bailey and Cookie are killed when the dragon breathes fire into the car. Ian, Dr. Winter, and her cloned dog manage to exit and board a helicopter as the facility erupts. The dragon squeezes through the elevator vent and gives chase, pursuing the helicopter into the sky. David calls for backup at a nearby military base, while Ian opens a side door to snap photos of the beast, only to be knocked from the chopper to his death.
Jets arrive, but the dragon’s cold-blooded nature renders heat-seeking missiles ineffective. The creature tears apart two jet aircraft and closes in on the helicopter, which is about to fail. In a bold move, Dr. Winter takes control of the helicopter while David opens the fuel hatch, dumps part of the fuel over the dragon, and fires a flare, igniting the creature. A well-aimed missile finally finishes the dragon off.
Back at the wreckage, two soldiers venture into a second, hidden lab beneath the first. They discover a cloning chamber containing a dragon embryo that grows rapidly, breaks free, and kills them.
