10,000 B.C. Review
Well, I've seen Roland Emmerich's latest pixel-fest 10,000 B.C., and it's no Quest for Fire. Would that it had been silent!
The actors, who are a mix of various ethnicities, run around in culturally chaotic garb. Some speak English with unidentifable foreign accents, some utter strange dialects (with subtitles), and one African tribe magically understands English. Our mud-spattered, attractively dread-locked hero (model-turned-actor Steven Strait) fights huge woolly CG mammoths with spears. And he leads his band on a trek over the snowy mountains to chase down his kidnapped true love (Camilla Belle) in a magnificent Egypt-like city complete with pyramids, trained mammoths, spooky priests with hideous long fingernails and thousands of slaves. (The Day After Tomorrow visual effects supervisor Karen Goulekas's VFX are terrific--a shot of red-sailed boats gliding up a desert canal is stunning.) The movie's narrator (always a bad sign) and everyone else seems to believe that our handsome hero is The One who will save everyone. Joseph Campbell is turning over in his grave.
Yes, 10,000 B.C. will open huge this weekend. Emmerich has a taste for cheesy entertainment. I adored Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. So, lured by Warner Bros.' potent marketing campaign, I demanded to see this movie. But as John Horn points out in today's LAT, 10,000 B.C. is not going to rate good reviews. (Here's Variety's Todd McCarthy, and what Rotten Tomatoes has so far. All rotten.) 10,000 B.C. is a risible mess. It makes Mel Gibson's Apocalypto look like sheer genius.
Apocalypto was genius. Great film.
Emmerich couldn't hold Gibson's jock when it comes to epic filmmaking.
Day After was stunningly moronic with looked great; the visual effects in that one were totally first rate.
ID4 was fun, for what it was, but looking back on it now, the visuals have not aged all that well.
Had Michael Bay done 10,000 BC I'd be more inclined to see it. Will catch up with it on dvd.
What pisses me off the most about 10,000 BC is that it's a movie that I should want to see.
Posted by: actionman | March 06, 2008 at 11:32 AM
What's amazing about Emmerich's films is that they're often just a few tweaks away from being critic-worthy. Some are indefensible, like "Godzilla," but a movie like "10,000 BC" should have ditched the funny accents and worked harder at making the actors look more authentically prehistoric. Those changes alone would have altered how many people will view the film.
Posted by: Christian Toto | March 06, 2008 at 12:15 PM
Saw the film last night at a promo screening and after seeing it all my friends and I could say was basically: "Did anybody get the license plate of that truck that just ran over us?"
WOW! It's a disaster of epic proportions. Even today we were still going over all the bad dialogue, laughable scenes, embarassing stereotypes and incohierent illogical plot details. Look at it this way, it's probably the most unintentionally hilarious film of the year
P.S. Did I forget to mention that for an expensive film it's one of the crummist, cheapest looking films to hit the screen lately? Those super low budget American International sci-fi movies back in the 60's looked better than this film
Posted by: Sergio | March 06, 2008 at 03:47 PM
I was so looking forward to this movie as well. I hate that they apparently butchered it so badly.
Check out the review quotes:
http://www.10000bcreviews.com/
Posted by: Chris | March 07, 2008 at 02:41 PM
Some speak English with unidentifable foreign accents, some utter strange dialects (with subtitles), and one African tribe magically understands English
theres actually one member of the tribe that speaks english and he said he learned it from D'lehs father who left his tribe earlier in the movie.I think the movie was amazing i dont care what anybody says. The plot was great, who really cares if it wasnt historically correct, that isnt why i went to see the movie, i went to be entertained i was
Posted by: jasgbiuyarb | March 09, 2008 at 11:36 PM