"10,000 B.C." (2008) - Movie Review

Long Long ago there was a time in Hollywood when stories need to be invented even it means to satiate the needs of the Block Buster audience. The clichés were disposed and there was at least a minimal effort to bring one point of a movie to show something unique, an attempt. Then there came the Computer Graphics, a novel way to look at things; grand, enormous and picture the impossible to possible. Soon it spread like disease and every one built something around it. Roland Emmerich made “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow” using that technology giving and honestly telling that it is an entertainment flick. It was fun for a while but later the unanimity in trusting a good film prevailed. Then Emmerich brings “10,000 B.C.” and it sucks, big time.

Why would you want this to happen in 10,000 B.C.? To show the mammoths? Or to present the great mountainous feature? It is simply a rescue feature of a hero, in this case D’Leh (Steven Strait) of his love, Evolet (Camille Belle). Emmerich did not want to use the ancient languages and hence the advanced cave men speak English and some other African language on their journey towards retrieving their people. It was opted so as Emmerich thought that “it would not be emotionally engaging”. Is he joking? The only emotionally engaging thing would be the desperate pain to avoid sleeping over the lame predictability of this film.

I do like “Independence Day” and “The Day After Tomorrow” because there is something more than the situation, a little bit which constituted the quest on a very large scale. Mainly it had some humour on its path to rescue. All the people in this film state the obvious a zillion times. “Where can we find them?”, “Great Destiny”, “The One”, “The Warrior”, “We will fight together”, what is the issue with the screen writers and mainly the studio?

To light fire on our wounds is the irritating voice over. If Emmerich needs a husky and annoying voice to tell the story of nothing, it cannot get more pathetic and sad. The actors are dressed in mud and they have the shambled gears to be civilized. What is the purpose of these strange men looting from a small village? Why do they have to travel so long to steal couple of fleshes when they have their own civilization and the method to feed? In the midst of it, we hear the “prophecies” which are far worse in guessing. There is Old Woman, Old Wise Men, a blind man who has something to say and you cannot stop laughing on dubbing funny dialogues for it.

If the purpose of the film is a sheer captive-rescue adventure, it might work for some but if it is said to be a representation of the pre historic periods to know about the history, it is an abuse over it. The time period is used as a prop, in a very bad manner to continue the script. Some movies do not even deserve the wastage of words on it and “10,000 B.C.” wasted my grammatically damaged words for nothing.