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Movie review: ‘10,000 BC’ a pre-hysterical riot
By admin | March 10, 2008
Not since Snakes on a Plane has a movie had a trailer that more perfectly captured its essence. The previews of 10,000 BC show lots of good-looking primitive people (with great teeth—they must have had great dental plans in 10,000 BC) fighting other primitive people and hunting/dodging mammoths.
And that’s the film. Loopy eye candy that you can enjoy in a non-demanding way and which will never cross your mind again. It’s the latest film from writer-director Roland Emmerich and it makes his Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow look like cinematic masterpieces. They were fun films that are worth revisiting from time to time, but Emmerich’s latest is nothing but forgettable fun.
The filmmaker evidently had visions of a pre-historic Braveheart, but 10,000 BC is hardly an epic. It involves D’Leh (Steven Strait), the son of a mammoth hunter, and his blue-eyed lady love Evolet (Camilla Belle). After a mammoth hunt in which he’s deemed a great hunter, he ends up leading some of his clansman on a quest to free his girlfriend (and other clansfolk) from the hostile Rock people, who are a cross between Egyptians and punk rockers. Along the way D’Leh and his gang fight what are best described as giant chickens and run across a sabre-tooth tiger. They also make allies and attach the Rock people’s metropolis, where slaves and mammoths are used to erect pyramids. It’s all as silly as it sounds. Some of the dialog is equally as goofy (“Don’t eat me when I free you,” D’Leh says to a tiger as he frees it from a trap) and the special effects range from very good (a mammoth stampeded) to sub-par (the phony looking sabre-tooth).
Still, all those involved with 10,000 BC serve up their giddily goofy tale with such gusto that even the dumb (even compared to what’s come before) ending can’t quite make the film the cinematic trainwreck it should be. There’s no really good reason to see 10,000 BC, but if you do, you’ll be reasonably entertained for a couple of hours.
10,000 BC is rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence. Running time: 109 minutes. Macsimum rating: 5 out of 10. You can check out the film’s trailer on the QuickTime movie trailer site.
Topics: Film Reviews |