Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence.
109 Minutes
Directed By: Roland Emmerich
Written by: Roland Emmerich and Harold Kloser
[speaking to the spear-tooth] You must remember me. I gave you life. -D’Leh
Synopsis
Prehistoric man’s love is taken to be a slave for crazy Pharaoh in far off land. Prehistoric man searches for woman and fights great battles and prehistoric foes. There is lots of CGI and little dialogue. There is almost a battle at the end.
Review
I tried to write a synopsis but the smart part of my brain couldn’t say much more than a sentence or two because that was all I could muster without criticizing any aspect of it. What I expect from a Roland Emmerich film is very little. I wager there will be superficial character’s with a paper thin plot and mediocre dialogue that will offer an occasional laugh if delivered by a good enough actor. Most importantly there is excellent CGI and action sequences to distract from the simplistic story being told before you. Emmerich is one of the few directors who can pull this off and generally come up with a reasonable movie that’s harmless enough to not mind that it’s kind of dumb.
10,00 b.c. did not offer that kind of pay-off. It failed miserably at every attempt to make anything that resembled a successful movie, action story, epic adventure, or even *holds breath* good CGI. It was BORING. An hour and a half of nonsense. I literally fell asleep twice and this was after a cup of coffee. The character’s are tedious and without any charismatic salvation. The lead actors best quality he can offer is nice abs and a handsome face. The journey is witless and without any anticipation to where the finale takes place. Once the great pyramid was unveiled it was such a let down nothing after it hardly mattered. The villains were not frightening and nor was the end result at all consequential to the tale being told.
The most disappointing aspect was the CGI. I had HUGE expectations here, and while some of the shots were pretty amazing, in general I felt like what I watched was separate from the actors in the story. Movies like Lord Of The Rings and the Weta team mastered the ability to take a fantasy or unknown world and make it feel real, like it was a possible existence in some universe. While this movie was a historic proven existence at one time, the shots, the land and the collaboration of it all came together as a movie set rather than a real world.
Ratings And Suggestions
I pretty much liked nothing about 10,000 b.c. and am thankful I didn’t spend $10 at the movie theatre like I had initially planned because the trailers made it seem so epic and fun. It was epic already, it was a better parody of epic movies than “Epic Movie” actually was. I actually feel dumber for having watched it. I give it a half star out of four based on the cool Woolly Mammoths and the fact that Witless Protection still was a worse movie than this. But that’s it.
I rarely stop watching movies half way through. This is one movie that I actually did.