10,000 B.C.

We went to see Roland Emmerich's prehistoric adventure, 10,000 B.C., the other night. The plot is fairly simple so here a short summary…

D'Leh (Steven Strait) is a young Mammoth hunter trying to earn his place in the tribe after the disappearance of his father. To secure the White Spear and a bride, he must show unwavering courage and bring down a Mammoth to help feed and clothe the tribe. This he does but more by accident than by design and he is troubled by it.

When the tribe is attacked and his bride-to-be Evolet (Camilla Belle) is taken captive along with many others, he vows to rescue them. So, along with Tic'Tic (Cliff Curtis) and the youngster Baku (Nathanael Baring), he sets off after the marauders and what they discover is far beyond his understanding.

I'm not sure where director/writer Roland Emmerich got the idea for this movie from but it misses the mark by a long way. First we get involved in D'Leh's right of passage with the Mammoth and then the bad guys come, kill a few people and steal some more. After that it turns into a plodding filler scene after filler scene affair until it gets to the ridiculous homeland of the invaders with its Stargate-like god character.

Unlike similar prehistoric movies like Quest For Fire and 1,000,000 Years B.C., these people can talk, well at least the good guys can, so there is some dialogue here to help move the story along but the script is pretty basic. The bad guys are all seriously ugly dudes and can only talk in low and menacing, subtitled tones. Okay, it's more accurate to the era as there are no dinosaurs and no one is wandering around in fur bikinis but at least Raquel Welsh added some much-needed glamour. This post ice age land is harsh and cold so lots of furs are needed to keep warm and for wildlife we get Mammoths, some giant carnivorous birds and a Sabertooth Tiger. Of course that's all done by CGI and it could have been better given the budget of over $100,000,000.


What's also weird is the fact that the slavers (for want of a better word) have travelled huge distances overland in very bleak country into what was probably central or eastern Europe from the Middle East when they had the whole of Africa and Asia to raid but then I suppose the heroes wouldn't have been white folks then would they.

Frankly, if you've seen the trailers, then you've pretty much seen most of the action in the movie. I'm just surprised we didn't see any Death Gliders and a platoon of Jaffa warriors in the final scene just to round off how ridiculous it all was. I've no idea what they spent all that money on with a such an unknown cast and average CGI work. I certainly couldn't recommend anyone spending any more by going to see it.

Genre: Adventure
My Rating: 5/10