10,000 BC Movie Review

10,000 BC (2008)

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Written by: Roland Emmerich, Harald Kloser
Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Starring: Camilla Belle, Steven Strait, Marco Khan, Cliff Curtis, Omar Sharif
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
In the prehistoric past, D'Leh is a mammoth hunter who bonds with the beautiful Evolet. When warriors on horseback capture Evolet and the tribesmen, D'Leh must embark on an odyssey to save his true love.

Verdict
I had low expectations, and even still I was disappointed. This focuses on action to a fault, adding derivative scenes to tie big set pieces together. If the action was impressive that might help. The story is flimsy, and it's a chore to get through this movie. If you're hoping the ending will make up for some of this movie's transgressions, it won't. It's one of those situations where I'm mad I didn't quit watching and mad that the movie is so bad.
Skip it.

Review
Emmerich's movies, like 2012 and Midway focus on action above plot. The story consists of cliches to link one action set piece to the next. I should have known to expect more of the same with 10,000 BC, but I still hoped for something like the more recent prehistoric movie, Alpha. It was not in English and used subtitles which feel appropriate for a movie set in prehistoric times, though Alpha did make the plot a bit easy on the characters.

Something about this reminds me of Battlefield Earth. I don't know if it's the similar settings, cliche plot, or mindless story. It's nowhere near as bad, but at least Battlefield Earth becomes so bad it's entertaining which is its own form of perverse enjoyment.

I wanted too much from this. I want a prehistoric movie with less dialog and certainly less voice over. Maybe I'm wrong, but I expect prehistoric people to have a less developed language. The voice over is annoying and completely pointless.

Steven Strait plays D'leh.

The story, action, and music are simplistic and on the nose. An orphan needs to save the girl and is joined by the wise elder and plucky kid. It's so derivative, and maybe that could work if this movie took a chance. It could cut a lot of the dialog like Valhalla Rising. I appreciate that Alpha implemented a language other than English.

As savage as prehistoric times are stereotyped, this movie makes the journey quite easy.This alludes to danger with a couple action scenes and large animals thrown in to break up the boredom. This is a heroes journey to triumph, and there's nothing enticing about it. There is never a doubt that D'leh will succeed. This relies on big set pieces to do too much, though that isn't a surprise with Emmerich. The movie never slows down enough to create the necessary mood and ambiance.

Cliff Curtis and Steven Strait.

Admittedly I like dark movies, but there's a certain authenticity to a movie set in this time period being gloomy and perilous. The Revenant did a great job with that. I wanted this to be a fight for survival. At one point in the desert a man passes out due to exhaustion, but of course not the hero.There nothing about tactics or how to cope with the environment. That's disingenuous. 

The hero ends up in an Egyptian-like city with some sort of god-king. It's reminiscent of 300, which makes sense since this movie picks and choose plot points from other movies to fill in the blanks. I didn't expect much from this, but I never imagined it would be this boring. On top of that, I watched this whole movie and that's the ending I get? Well it's the complete lack of anything even pretending to be satisfying ending and the return of pointless voiceover.