10,000 BC review : Movies

[poojasingh]

The bad reviews should have warned me… but the disgusted spewing by all the critics forced me to catch a late night show of 10,000 BC. That and a free ticket!!!! Well, there’s definitely a reason for the awful evaluations. I thank my lucky stars that the film finished when it did… I had very nearly choked on my own bile by the time it ended!!!

Ok! So I’m thinking, where should I start?? Much the same thought Roland Emmerich must have had when he made 10,000 BC. He’s picked up interesting bits of history from different ages and put them all together in one film, which is supposed to be set at the start of the Mesolithic era! For those of you who didn’t get that, that’s what followed the Ice Age. Remember that awesome animation flick with Manny the mammoth, Sid the sloth, Diego the saber-toothed tiger and the pink human baby? Well, just to warn you, this is NOTHING like that! And – coming back to the film – even though sabers and mammoths were wiped out by all the ice, they seem to roam pretty freely in Emmerich’s version… giving many a historian sleepless nights and us viewers undigested popcorn!!

The film has a sad beginning; a barely-there middle and I don’t really know if the end was supposed to be that way!!! Of all the confused offerings from his creative (and I use that word VERY loosely!) stable till date – no, no… his bizarre musings didn’t stop at Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow – this one definitely takes the cake.

Before I talk about anything else… here’s the plot (if I can actually call it that) of the film. The Yagahl tribe is supposed to be a simple, peace-loving race that only kills animals for food. But the people are beginning to face a problem in finding sufficient food (read mammoths to kill). That’s not all… they suddenly have a bigger worry to deal with... the arrival of the ‘four-legged demons’ or slave raiders from a neighboring culture, who have actually figured out how to build pyramids… wow, just imagine! These horse riding “bad guys” (for the want of a more apt word) kidnap the Yagahl young to use as cheap labor. And along with the young, they carry of a certain leading lady as well, which sets our barely-there plot in motion. I mean seriously… all this petty power play happened so dramatically way back then as well??

Anyway, so in the midst of all this super charged, digitized and fine picture quality excitement, a young Yagahl hunter called D’Leh (played most woodenly by Steven Strait), sets off after his kidnapped lady love Evolet, actress Camilla Belle, who wears her crusty deadlocks and animal teeth adornments with forced panache! Armed with wooden spears and a few foolishly brave friends, D’Leh finds himself fighting prehistoric animals the ice age SHOULD have wiped out, monstrous snow storms that exist only in a digital studio and a bad guy whose awful make-up prompts you to almost steer him in the direction of a psychiatrist!

Whew! If any of you managed to understand that, then the following shouldn’t be so bad. Besides the fact that the writer and director have forgotten what doing a background check and homework is, the film has some serious flaws that make you wonder how anyone believed in the project while shooting it!! First off, these cave men of yore have absolutely perfect teeth… I didn’t realize they had such excellent dentists way back then! Then there’s that teensy-weensy issue about language. I was bowled over by the way in which our pre-historic ancestors (who only used sign language and sounds to communicate) speak such perfect English!!

The film is an offensive waste of time with a lot of gratuitous idiocy. It is outrageous and outlandish, and while it may have been inspired by the 1940 and 1967 versions of ‘One Million BC,’ writer-director Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 BC is a combination of crazy, preposterous, and avoid-at-all-costs historical inaccuracy!!

[phase]

This is a movie I've been looking forward to watching for a long time ago. It reminds me a bit of 300, but there seem to be appearant differences . . . such as the title not specifying ammount but rather a time, haha, I'll be watching it soon!

[steppysteph]

I watched 10,000 BC simply because of lack of alternative. At first, the movie was just okay for me. There are some romance bit, some funny bits here and there, but it was mostly a very shallow movie. The casting and makeup are not very "realistic" of the era they are portraying. It just screams Hollywood version of 10,000 BC. Just great looking actors and actresses who really do not have that much grasp and understanding of what the people during that era are supposed to act or sound like.

The one thing that I found to be very similar to the movie 300 was the "spear throwing" scene wherein the hero threw a spear to kill the head enemy. Of course it was done in slow motion so all I can think of is "Oh my god, it's probably going to fall short or it probably won't kill the enemy, just like in 300!" And then the spear hit the enemy and the enemy falls down the flight of stairs without any grace at all. I was simply stunned because I can't believe that the enemy's role was just finished like that. I thought he would have done some other things to make the story have more depth and plot.

The last scene just screams of a Hollywood ending when the girl who died just came alive again. It was a classic Hollywood ending of the hero and heroine ending up together and not dying in the movie. Anyway, the main conclusion is, the movie was not very good. I simply liked the setting and the fact that it tells of a story during 10,000 BC and we can get a glimpse of what was life then.

[five-of-eight]

I well, I guess I won't be seeing this movie then. I've also heard a lot of bad reviews, but strangely, it was like #1 or 2 during the first week...

[maryelser]

Even with all the bad reviews, I'll have to watch it for myself. I'll probably find itto be as bad as the reviews make it out to be, lol but I really want to see it! The previews looked awsome!

[gsk6u]

i liked it and gave it a 6/10.

i just cant seem to understand why people hate it so much.

i understand that this movie might not be accurate, but neither is 300, gladiator and many other movies