10,000 bc....?

10,000 B.C. is poorly scripted, abysmally acted, and it has special effects that are a downright travesty. The film’s action scenes, which should be its main selling point, are few and far between. Between each action sequence there are long periods of pointless narration and the main character negotiating with would be allies to free his people from the film’s antagonist. If that sounds boring to you, trust me watching it is even more taxing on ones patience. I haven’t looked at my watch that frequently in a long time. I previously thought that the film “Jumper” was the worst science fiction film so far this year, but I believe 10,000 B.C. beats even Jumper in overall poorness of quality. The film’s acting is something that you would expect for a made for television movie. To compound problems, the main tribe that the film focuses on, actually has characters that speak in English accents! As if the third rate acting and English accents didn’t ruin this movie’s authenticity enough, the special effects looked too cartoonish. In fact much of the stock CGI work you see in today’s Saturday morning cartoons for kids is not qualitatively that much off from the computer generated mammoths and saber tooth tigers of 10, 000 B.C. – both of which were not even menacing enough to scare a 5 year old child. The final climatic battle scene was anticlimactic. The fight choreography consisted of crowds running back and forth and each individual performing a simple punch or kick. The faceoff between the hero and the main villain (who is not even shown fully), consists of a spear throw. I could have thrown popcorn at the screen and it would have been more exciting for the audience. If the special effects work was fitting for Saturday morning cartoons, the plot of 10,000 B.C. was not even worthy of that honor. Put simply, the film has an idyllic hunter tribe raided by bounty hunters who kill most of its inhabitants and take the others away to a labor camp devoted to building temples for the unseen villain who promotes himself as a god to the simple prehistoric people of the time period. Among those captured was the hero’s love interest, played by the lovely Camilla Bell. Now if you are looking for such a beautiful actress to be scantily clad - thinking that such an assumption would be logical given that it is a film set in a time period when people had few cloths – here again you will be immensely disappointed. In fact the male figures of the film have less clothing on than she does. To put it succinctly this film fails on every level. Conan the Barbarian would have looked sophisticated compared to 10,000 B.C., and Arnold Schwarzenegger, compared to the actors in this film, would have come out looking like a stellar thespian. It is very hard to believe that such a pile of garbage could come from the talented mind of a man who directed Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. I guess even the best falter from time to time. In fact I think if I traveled back in time, and abducted a caveman who lived in 10,000 B.C, and gave him modern movie making instruments, he could churn out a film at least as good as this, if not better. 10,000 B.C. – the B. C. stands for Boring Crap.

It was okay.