10,000 BC Movie Review (2008)
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Written by Roland Emmerich and Warald Kloser
Major Cast
Steven Strait as D'Leh
Camilla Belle as Evolet
Cliff Curtis as Tic'Tic
Joel Virgel as Nakudu
Affif Ben Badra as Warlord
Mo Zinal as Ka'Ren
Nathanael Baring as Baku
Mona Hammond as Old Mother
Marco Khan as One-Eye
I don’t know how, but I made it. Thirty minutes into it I almost bailed. I really did. But my thoughts dwelled upon the poor souls who may accidentally rent or purchase this film without reading my review first. I couldn’t let them down. It is my given mission, my destiny, to step up and take one for the team so they won’t have to. I gnashed my teeth, bared-down and endured.
I managed to sit through arguably, one of the most pointless films in the history of mankind, and I did it without the aid of alcohol or prescription painkillers. Now, while I never said that 10,000 B.C. is a bad film, let it be known that 30 minutes into it I had no idea what was going on, I had no vested interest in the plight of the main characters, and on the rare occasions when the story became somewhat coherent, it was at the expense of becoming too predictable.
The film 10,000 B.C. is an effects-driven movie, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The Wooly Mammoths seem alive, the predatory birds are menacing, and the saber-toothed tiger looks dangerous. So yay CGI.
With a name like 10,000 B.C., I incorrectly assumed that the content would be historically accurate, but it wasn’t and there’s nothing wrong with that either. Granted, if a film came out tomorrow titled 1983 A.D. and the content included Michael Jackson’s breakthrough performance of river-dancing to Phil Collins, “In the Air Tonight” on Motown 25, many viewers might take exception to this slight inconsistency (I was going to use Prince and Madonna peppering MTV with music videos about abstinence as an example, but for 1983 that’s reaching too far.)
But hey, it’s not like Pharaoh Khufu is going to rise from the grave saying, “Ay-yo, wassup, B? Nu-uh! No, no, no! Nope! My folks built these pyramids around 2,560 B.C., and not once in my entire life have I ever seen a mammoth here in the desert! Roland Emmerich is a liar, yo!” Besides, this is not a documentary, this is for entertainment purposes. So poo on historical accuracy!
Unfortunately, the insufficient entertainment value of this movie cannot simply be brushed aside. The poetic, pre-civilized tribal prose was novel in the beginning (“Look upon the star that never moves, and know that my caring for you will never waver.” Nice stuff. Men on horseback described as, “four-legged devils”. I get it. Kinda sweet.) But it got old quick, (Dude, what the hell is a mannok? Just call them mammoths, like the rest of us.) Why the writers felt the viewer needed to be repeatedly clubbed in the head by the notion that the characters are all primitive – though most characters are already clearly dressed in mammoth fur and chasing mammoths with spears – is but a myth upon the unseen winds that blow into my ear to trigger an aneurism, or as we refer to them in our own distinctive vernacular, the forgetful sleepytime headache.
But beneath the CGI, artistic license, caveman-poetic vernacular, and guttural names that wreck havoc on my spell-checker, rests a weak, obvious story that suffers from most of the action/adventure clichés.
A prophecy centered on a mysterious little girl and a boy who would become king? Check. Mysterious witch-doctor lady who can read the tribe’s future by grabbing the little girl by the ears and shaking violently? Check. Pre-pubescent love at first sight between the boy and girl that bonds them as they grow into adulthood? Check. The mysterious girl gets kidnapped? Check. The boy, weak and fearful, is compelled upon a hero’s journey until he becomes strong enough to lead a coalition and confront his destiny? Check. The mentor, guiding the boy down the righteous path until he is slain, which compels the boy to proceed alone? Check. Throw in the other linear sub-prophecies and a predictable, feel-good ending, and we have 109 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.
Unintentional Comedic Highlight: The Big, Bad Boss (let’s call him “Superchief”) was displeased with his slaves’ efforts, so he ordered a sacrifice. This scene was obviously intended to emphasize the dire predicament the enslaved people were in. But instead of a dramatic scene where the hapless victim is chained to an alter or some other dramatic effect, one of the taskmasters just picks up a guy (a friend of the hero) and unceremoniously chucks him from the top of the pyramid like a sack of potatoes.
Maybe I really am an evil warlord at heart because I found that scene absolutely hilarious. I couldn’t stop laughing. But that also emphasizes a glaring problem with this film. I had absolutely no emotional connection with anyone in this movie. I could care less if the hero got his chick back or toppled Superchief’s evil regime.
I just wanted it to be over.
The Grades
Story: In the beginning-time, my head was troubled by the white rains of uneven writing, but soon my heart was splayed asunder and left for the terror birds to feast upon in the reeds of ambiguity and triteness.
Random question: Are mammoths so near-sighted that a tribe of hunters can sneak right up to the soles of their feet in broad daylight? Can someone please ask a mammoth for me? Grade: D-
Acting: How hard is it to act like a caveman? Oops… better not let Geico hear me. Grade: C
Visuals: CGI grows like lilies from four-legged devil-manure. Grade: B
Originality/Innovation: I can honestly say that I’ve never seen anything like this before, but let’s not duplicate it anytime soon. Grade: B
Enjoyability Grade: If given a choice between watching this film again and giving Barbara Walters a bikini-wax… I’ll have to get back to you on that. Grade: F
Date Material: Nope. Even the obligatory love story subplot sucks. Grade: F
Contemporary Element (Will it be watchable two decades from now?): Decades from now, historians will scratch their heads and wonder why someone would expend great amounts of cash on CGI to fund a movie about people running around in loincloths and animal fur while tossing pointy sticks at each other. Grade: F
Redeeming Quality: At least I didn’t have to go to a museum to see a saber-toothed tiger. Oh, and one of the villains is named “One Eye”. Insert your own joke here. Grade: C-
Overall Grade: D
***
Blind Eye Turning: Poems, Prose, and other Scribbles, by Barry Dawson
Buy it at www.lulu.com
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