10,000 BC

10,000 BC: Boring Crap

It's the year 10,000 BC, more or less. (I didn't see a single calendar in the film so I have just the title to go on.) A tribe of hunter-gatherers live on the foothills of a great mountain range, living off the land and hunting mammoths. One of the young warriors of the tribe is D'Leh (pronounced "delay"), who becomes a great hero in the tribe when he single-handedly kills a mammoth during a hunt.

The plot begins in earnest when a horde of "four-legged demons" (men on horseback) raid the tribe's encampment and abscond with several members of the tribe. D'Leh and a few of his young warrior friends follow the raiders, intending on rescuing the captives, among which is D'Leh's love interest, an attractive young woman called Evolet.

Anyway, D'Leh and his pals follow the raiders across the mountains and through the jungle into the desert. In the desert, D'Leh's party meets a tribe who have also been victimized by the raiders, who tell him where the raiders' homeland is. The desert tribe sees D'Leh's arrival as the fulfillment of a prophecy (don't ask) and so agree to help him. They also call in the neighbouring tribes for help.

And so D'Leh, his friends, and the warriors from a bunch of desert tribes descend on the homeland of the raiders, who are building a giant pyramid in the desert, using slave labour (the captives) to build it. Realizing that even with the warriors from various tribes on his side, his side would be no match for the raiders. So he comes up with a plan: covertly make contact with the slaves and convince them to rise up in revolt. Which, naturally, they do.

From the trailers, one would expect that this movie would be an action-packed adventure story, with men struggling for survival against various large extinct critters. But this movie is nothing like what the trailers promised. It's as if they took all the movie's action sequences and crammed them into the trailer. Because the movie seen here is mostly nothing like the trailers.

Sure, there is the mammoth hunt early in the film, which is probably the best thing in the movie. It's epic, it's exciting, it's heartstopping, watching a large herd of woolly mammoths (very well rendered in CGI) against a bunch of guys with spears. There's also a scene in which D'Leh faces down a sabertooth tiger, and a scene in which D'Leh and his bunch fight off some giant flightless birds (like ostriches with attitude) in the jungle.

Here, kitty kitty kitty...

In between all of these are large, long stretches of D'Leh and his party as they cross the mountains into the jungle, then into the desert on the other side of the jungle. I noted that there were no transition zones between the biomes depicted here. One would normally expect a tract of open grassland between a jungle and a desert, but it seems that D'Leh and his bunch move from one to the other directly. But the point is, a lot of the movie is D'Leh and his bunch travelling.

I also wondered what continent this all supposedly took place on. The only places that have mountains like what we saw would be North or South America (the Rockies and the Andes, respectively). Down from the mountains, they descend into a jungle that looks like the stereotype of the Amazon Rainforest. Okay, so they're in South America. But then they arrive in a desert that looks like Egypt, complete with the Nile River. Say, what? What did D'Leh do, teleport across the Atlantic?

(I won't even ask why the raiders travelled so far to get a bunch of captives.)

Even worse, D'Leh and his friends all look alike: unkempt dredlocks, scraggly black beards, fur-skin clothing. So half the time I didn't know who was who. Meanwhile, Evolet (whose distinctive feature is that her eyes are blue) does little more look plaintive as she travels with the raiders, her role being nothing more than someone for our stalwart hero to rescue.

And possibly the biggest groaner of them all. D'Leh gets the slaves to revolt and leads the uprising to victory. (Oh, come on. Who didn't see that coming?) This causes the downfall of the leader of the pyramid builders, which causes their civilization to collapse like a house of cards. Thus setting back the progress of mankind by several thousand years. Way to go, D'Leh.

(I know why they didn't capture D'Leh when they raided the village. The raider leader was told by his boss to return without delay, and he took it literally.) (Sorry, bad joke.)

So, yeah. Unless watching prehistoric tribesmen walking a long distance is your idea of fun, I would skip this movie entirely. A few widely-spaced action sequences are not enough to over come the sheer tedium that takes up most of this movie's running time.

Note: the movie was narrated by Omar Sharif. (A narrator was necessary, otherwise we'd have no idea what was going on. Not that it really helped much.) He should be ashamed of himself.

Last updated: 2010-04-09 19:17:58 by Xenon

10000 BC

10,000 BC.

This actually isn’t a bad movie.  I really like the basic love story.  You know where boy feels isolated and alone, girl feel isolated and alone so they feel isolated and alone together.  Grow up as boyfriend/girlfriend.

But through a cruel twist of nature and some crazy old woman’s prophecy, he has to kill the mammoth and claim the white spear and the girl.  the white spear means he’s like the chief or leader now. 

He does what he’s supposed to and kills the mammoth and gets the white spear and the girl.

Some jack asses on horses blow through town wrecking stuff and taking prisoners including the girl.  so her rallies the troops and they take off in hot pursuit. 

Low and behold on the other side of the mountain there’s like fifteen different cultures all living in a ten mile radius of each other.  Crazy African tribes living in medieval villages.  Pygmies and all kinds of crazy stuff.

This is where they got a little carried away I think.  Just too much stuff in there.  Too much of a mishmash of stuff. 

So he rallies all these different dudes and cultures because of prophecy that one day someone will come and free the people from this oppressive pseudo Egyptian civilization that’s been raiding all their villages and taking people as slaves to build their giant pyramids for one the call the Almighty.

The mammoths are awesome to look at and the hunt scene at the beginning of the movie is one of the best jobs of CGI you’ll see.  It’s beautiful.

I love big sweeping epics like this and even though they tried to put too much in it, it’s definitely worth checking out.  Don’t know if I’d go higher than ten bucks used at blockbuster, but I’m sure it’ll find its way to the five dollar bin at wal-mart in about ten months or so.

I’m a nerd, so I’m sure I’ll pick it up at some point.

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Cal Reed

10,000BC

I really tried to like this movie. I really, really did. 10,000BC was no doubt a very good popcorn movie, but it failed on so many levels.



This movie came off as a very strong rip-off of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. Even the story line is the same. Half naked guy with bulging muscles is the protector of his village and lover of the most beautiful babe in the tribe. Sadly..half naked guy with bulging muscles loses everything after another tribe on horses (which shouldn't exist in 10,000BC) came along, sacked the village and kidnapped his babe. Heartbroken, half naked guy with bulging muscles goes on a quest to reclaim his beau by WALKING through different climate zones, whilst fighting off sabretooth tigers and giant man-eating Dodos.



For what it's worth, 10,000BC boasts the most breathtaking cinematography and CGI I have ever seen since Lord Of The Rings. The acting was good and the actors are just so fine. Especially Camilla Belle (yes people..I'm still straight). The score and sound effects are incredibly terrifying and it just adds to the tension and suspense the action scenes creates. So an A+ to the producers for that.



It's story line flowed pretty well though some huge chunks of it were dispensable. For example, there was this whole plot line about half naked guy's babe being the bringer of life and shares a spiritual connection with an oracle back at their ravaged village.




And Camilla Belle looks hot in this! Clearly they only added this in because they needed a girl for the guys to gawk at or else for the entire 3 hours they would just be watching half naked guys running everywhere. (*hint hint* rip off from 300). Other than that, the plot left a lot of pot holes which weren't filled up and the ending was one of the most Hong Kong drama type of movie endings ever.



Clearly the director didn't do his homework in tying things together and this made the movie run on longer than it should have been. This movie was sort of a let down, prior to the hype it created but for what it's worth, I think 10,000BC is a fun way of passing the time.

RATING: 4/10

NicholasC

10,000 B.C. (2008)

BOTTOM LINE: This film is a visual splendour, but there's a dumb, arbitrary, and 2-dimensional aspect to proceedings which make this film at times entertaining but at others completely laughable.

THE GOOD: Roland Emmerich, if nothing else, is very talented at giving us the money shots and 10,000 BC continues this tradition of creating marvellous visuals that are a sight to behold. They help to take us back to a time before time, where mammoths walked the earth, saber-tooth tigers prowled the open plains, and the human race was just becoming enlightened and moving away from its animal origins. Against this backdrop, this film takes us on the 'first' adventure led by a doubtful hero who eventually overcomes his weaknesses to take on the Gods, who turn out not to be Gods at all but malicious beings forcing humans to create pyramids. A lot of what works in this film is on the surface; we have the basic story of the 'one' rising to the forefront, leading a battle against the human race's ultimate evil tyrant. Emmerich revisits similar territory to his earlier film 'Stargate' but doesn't seem to want to explore too much about exactly 'who' is masquerading as the God, whether it be alien or human remnants from the lost city of Atlantis. All of these ideas are a giddy joy and make you wonder exactly where we came from and why so many mysteries are still unsolved (like the pyramids). Emmerich also deserves points for being bold enough to cast no known actors in the film, relying solely on story (however much there is) and visuals.

THE BAD: There just isn't any depth to the story telling. To be clear, I'm not asking for Shakespeare or even a David Fincher film, but the characters in 10,000 BC are nothing more than clunky caricatures, and the way they move from one point to the next is just as superficial. Without the visuals, this film is really very silly. Perhaps what caps this off perfectly is the death of the 'God' - our big hero throws a spear and kills the God who collapses to the ground in front of everyone. And then what happens? A big buzzing fly flies over the God's half exposed face with sound effect to match. It's an odd moment and the audience I saw this film with burst out in laughter. I'm not sure that was the intention. This film is filled with such moments. But perhaps worst of all is that the film just doesn't make any attempt to draw you in to the characters, something that's really needed given we have to follow these guys all the way through the film and care about their cause. Even the 'Old Mother' character, which serves more as a spiritual link to the characters is used in a silly way, and in the end makes an otherwise poignant and tragic climax a superficial excuse for the hero to get the girl in the end. All of this makes you feel as if none of them were ever in any real danger and as such, there are no thrills thereby making watching the film more of a mechanical exercise with the only thing to enjoy being the splendid visuals. 

RATING: 5.5/10

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Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

Last updated: 2010-02-07 00:06:54 by user01

10, 000 B.C.

 
 When I first saw the advertisements for this film, I thought it was just going to be another special effects movie. That is to say, ”let’s make a shitty story and show off our special-effects abilities.” I really had no desire to see it, but for some reason last Sunday, I saw that it was playing in the theatres here and shelled out € 5,50 and watched it.

What a surprise! This movie was f*cking awesome. I don’t really know how else I can say that, but really, I thought it was pretty cool. I don’t really have time to talk about it too much because I gotta go to class soon, but let me just say that this movie is awesome. The story is pretty simple: A young dude named D’Leh is the hero, and his babe gets stolen by these barbaric a**holes. Thus, he must go after them, facing Mammoths and Sabertooth tigers along the way, and hey, why not unite some people as well? Such a cool movie. If I had some more money with me at the time, I could have simply bought another ticket and seen it again. I enjoyed it that much.

The story is pretty cool. But I think that I like these kind of stories: stories about propheziced warriors and getting your love back from your enemies. It reminded a bit of "Apocalypto", pretty much having the same premise, but I did not think of it as plagarism or anything of the sort. A lot of people say the acting was bad, but it was dubbed in German so I couldn’t tell. (The German voiceover was really well done!)

And let me just say that the girl who played he hero’s beloved Evolet (Camilla Belle) is very, very, very attractive. At least I think so. Damn.

So, we got some beasts, lots of spears, jungles, Mammoths, battles, dreadlocks, snow, some oracle and some other awesomeness. Not bad, Roland. Not bad at all.



Marry me plz. haha

Recommendations: (500) Days Of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009)

Last updated: 2010-01-17 02:32:22 by rammfan518

10,000 B.C.

The film touched on a lot of different points, from the demons of man who would try to exert power over the masses by proclaiming themselves a god to respecting the cultures of different tribes to understanding animals. I thought an especially powerful scene was one in which D'Leh saves a sabertooth tiger from drowning and then the sabertooth tiger comes back to protect him. I dug the fact that 10,000 B.C. was able to juggle a few different themes and still expand on them enough to make them relevant.

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Last updated: 2009-08-19 04:18:57 by Ryneb