The filmmaker who launched a UFO invasion in Independence Day and unleashed the forces of global warming in The Day After Tomorrow now unveils a new day of adventure, a time when mammoths shake the earth and mystical spirits shape human fates. Roland Emmerich directs 10,000 BC, the eye-filling tale of the first hero. That hero is young hunter D'Leh (Steven Strait), set out on a bold trek to rescue his kidnapped beloved (Camilla Belle) and fulfill his prophetic destiny. He'll face an awesome saber-toothed tiger. Cross uncharted realms. Form an army. And uncover an advanced but corrupt Lost Civilization. There, he will lead a fight for liberation - and become the champion of the time when legend began.
To anyone who has ever yearned to see woolly mammoths in full stampede across the Alps, 10,000 BC can be heartily recommended. There's also a flock of "terror birds"--lethal ostriches on steroids--in a steaming jungle only a splice away from the heroes' snow-dusted alpine habitat. And lo, somewhere in the vastness of the North African desert lies a city whose slave inhabitants alternately teem like the crowds in Quo Vadis during the burning of Rome and trudge in hieratically menacing formations like the workers in Metropolis. That's pretty much it for the cool stuff. Setting movies in prehistoric times is dicey. Apart from the "Dawn of Man" sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey, only Quest for Fire makes the grade, and its creators had the good sense to limit the dialogue to grunts and moans. 10,000 BC boasts a quasi-biblical narrator (Omar Sharif) and characters who speak in formed, albeit uninteresting, sentences--including a New Age-y "I understand your pain." But let no one say the storytelling isn't primitive. The narrator speaks of "the legend of the child with the blue eyes" and bingo, here's the kid now. When, grown up to be Camilla Belle, she's carried off by "four-legged demons"--guys on horseback to you--the neighbor boy (Steven Strait) who hankers to make myth with her leads a rescue mission into the great unknown world beyond their mountaintop. His name is D'Leh, which is Held, the German for "knight," spelled backward. So yes, there is some hidden meaning after all.
10,000 BC is the latest triumph of the ersatz from writer-director Roland Emmerich. Like Stargate (1994), Independence Day (1996), and The Day After Tomorrow (2004) before it, it's shamelessly cobbled together out of every movie Emmerich can remember to pilfer from (though to be fair, the section in pre-ancient Egypt harks back to his own Stargate). Emmerich's saving grace is that his films' cheesiness is so flagrant, his narratives so geared for instant gratification, he can seem like a kid simultaneously improvising and acting out a story in his backyard: "P'tend there's this alien ... p'tend maybe he came from Atlantis or something...." Just don't p'tend it has anything to do with real moviemaking. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 2.5 / 5.0
An Astoundingly Awful Movie:
I am a fan of the science fiction genre but there is no amount of lipstick you could put on this pig to make it palatable. This is a truly terrible movie.
Good price Great Movie !!:
A Great Adventure Movie at an Excellent Price !! Thank You -JS !!
one of the worst movies of 2008:
I have to be fair... I categorize the worst movies of this year based on how much emphasis is put on them before they are released. 10,000 B.C. certainly wouldn't be a worse movie than any of the B rated horror films put out recently such as "Side Sho", but it is close. The only thing making it a better film is a bigger budget. 10,000 B.C. is a lousy attempt at making a somewhat prehistoric setting realistic. What we have instead is a cartoon style CGI festival coupled with corny, and at times stupid,... more info
Quest For Fire it ain't!!!:
I am pretty open to all types of movies and I even liked Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. This movie is so laden with WTFs it can't even be called entertaining. It would do much better as a comedy but the stage is set for a serious production.
The opens in a snowy land where the guys are too stupid to wear shirts and coat themselves with mud. The girls though have been smart enough to invent bras. They also invented mascara, eyeliner, rouge and lipstick and in the beginning of the movie they have... more info
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