Starring: Steven Strait, Camilla Belle, Cliff Curtis
Director: Roland Emmerich
Release Date: March 7, 2008
Running Time: 109 min
MPAA Rating: R
Distributor: Warner Bros

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Review by Jeremy Welsch

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So I’m in the theatre seeing who knows what with my better half. We watch the previews and turn to each other after each one is over and give the one look critique in silence. You know, that head shake or whatever which determines if this is one she'll see with me or one I am on my own for. The first time I see the trailer for 10,000 B.C, I have to admit I was interested. It looked pretty decent. I turn to her shaking my head yes and am met with a blank stare and the following statement; “Are you kidding me? Aren’t you a movie critic?”

Touché.

I sign up to review the movie and the same night I saw the trailer again ahead of something else. Once again I thought it looked decent. Then I started thinking. Where is the dialogue? What is the story about? Wait, why did I think this was going to be good after hearing again who made it?

Dear God, what have I done...

One things for sure, no one ever accused Roland Emmerich of being a master craftsman. His previous attempts to direct have yielded exactly one and three quarters of a half decent movie – Independence Day, The Patriot, and Stargate. I can’t decide which movie makes up which percent, but I’m sticking to my figures.

Movies involving history or past events that have allegedly taken place are tricky business. People making these movies typically try to stick to the facts as much as possible and interject the story with life where they have a need to make the story flow. Fair enough, I say. I imagine the idea of a movie like 10,000 B.C., in its infancy, was designed to tell a story focused not so much on fact, but rather on an interesting setting. Again, fair enough.

There are just too many things to attack in a movie this bad. The story itself is a common-and-garden variety prehistoric odyssey with no heart. And I may have been schooled in the butt crack of the Midwest but even I know English wasn’t the native tongue ten thousand years ago. In an interview with Emmerich he said he decided to use English in the movie because he felt using an ancient language wouldn’t have been as emotionally engaging. He went on to say that faced with the dilemma of forcing the audience to read subtitles of a language they didn’t understand or looking at what was on screen, he opted for the latter. Hearing this made me immediately assume that what we were being forced to look at would have compensated for the lack of story. Aside from a couple scenes in the movie, it did not.

It’s hard to say if the movie is meant to be a history lesson of some kind. If it is, then it is grossly irresponsible. I thought it less of a lesson in history and more of one in economics; the study of the production, distribution, and consumption of good and services. It is bad economics to make a movie of this size and spend all the money in the budget on a handful of scenes. Emmerich is known for doing this and why he keeps being allowed to do so without producing a decent picture is beyond me. The lesson here is that if you don’t want to see it then don’t go and you win, right? Well this may be true to a point but look at it like this: A studio spends umpteen million dollars to make a pile of a movie like this then is forced to oversaturate the market with its product. This means you get sixteen showings a day of 10,000 B.C. at your local theatre while movies that cost less to make, and therefore lose less if they make less, get pulled early or are not run at all. So even if you don’t go see movies like this, you still lose.

I guess they’re right; there is no such thing as a free lunch.

And there’s the rub.

Film Rating: * out of ****

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Comments (1)

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lol.. I was drooling when I watched the movie trailer.. then a friend told me yesterday how bad it was.. not even worth a cent, even if you rent its DVD !

Michael Aulia , April 06, 2008 | url

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