Comment about 10,000 BC movie
By mickeydavis
@mickeydavis (335)
Singapore
April 9, 2008 8:18am CST
Emmerich and company clearly had no interest in authenticity when they made this preposterous prehistoric adventure. But it is surprisingly enjoyable rubbish.
In a remote icy mountain range, a young man D'Leh is the subject of a prophecy that is about to come true when his beloved Evolet is abducted by " four-legged demons" (slave traders on horseback) and he heads od to rescue her. The journey takes him and his surrogate father (Curtis) over mountains, through rainforests and accross a cast desert to pyramid city to dind the trader (Badra) who has Evolet. Along the way he befriends both the leader (Virgel) of another tribe and a ferocious sabre-toothed tiger.
Emmerich films this in an epic style, reveling in the gloriously expansive landscapes of his locations in New Zealand, South Africa and Namibia. The story and characters, on the other hand, are utterly preposterous, from Evolet's plucked eyebrows to D'Leh's expertise at first aid. Nothing here rings even remotely true, ehile the plot itself groans with predictability right up to the corny finale. And there are also disappointments along the way, from the fake looking backdrops to the underused tiger.
And yet, the film is still thoroughly entertaining. Each boneheaded story point makes us chuckle, as does the simplistic dialog spoken in gruff stage whispers or, in Badra's case, with Chewbacca-like enhancement. The digital effects are actually pretty spectacular, including the opening mammoth hunt and the climactic pyramid-bulding sequences. And Omar Sharif's voice over narration adds just the right amount of over-serious gravitas. It is hard to imagine the filmmakers coming up with anything else that would have made this more of a self-parody. It is impossible to take even a moment of the film seriously. But even if the "terror bird" sequence is purely gratuitous and laughably fantastical, its also genuinely scary. Although the central romance is completely contrived, it's also somewhat touching. And if the baddies are a lazy blend of every movie villain in history, at least they're fairly nasty. Well, within the limits of the hackneyed plot. And even though there's never a hint of either research or gritty realism, it is still good fun.
Keep posting,
Mickey
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