Sunday, April 13, 2008

Movie Review: 10,000 BC (Spoilers)

I should state, for the record, that I was a big fan of "Clan of the Cave Bear". When I saw the previews for this movie, I thought, interesting, they are mixing prehistoric Mammoth hunters with some kind of Egyptian-esque pyramid builders. Not exactly two time spheres that overlap, but I thought they might be able to do something with it.
A friend told me it wasn't that good.
I should have listened to him.
I don't really have veeery high standards when it comes to movies. I am no Roger Ebert. I am not concerned with the finer points of movie making. My main criteria are pretty lax. Lemme go down some of them, and how 10,000 BC fared.

  • Did I ever look at my watch: No, I was never bored during the movie. It moved along at a decent pace, and didn't really drag anywhere
  • Was it plausible: Here's where it failed miserably. There's suspension of disbelief, and then there is stuff that is just ridiculous. Lemme rundown a list of some of the completely ridiculous things about this movie:
    • he saves a sabre-tooth tiger from drowning, and not only does the tiger not eat him then, he remembers him later, and spares him (and all his buddies) again
    • They cross temperature zones, from snowy mountain tops, to rainforests, to deserts. On foot. In what appears to be less than a week.
    • they are cavemen with dredded hair, but he has a perfectly trimmed goatee
    • the love of his life is shot with an arrow and dies, but the wise-woman who is on the other side of the equator gives her last breath to her, and she comes back to life
    • Not only do we have cavemen, but African tribesmen, and people who are not exactly Egyptian building pyramids (with the help of some captive Mammoths)
    • There is a slaves quarters that the baddies keep the slaves held in at night when they aren't busy constructing the pyramid, but the goodies manage to slip in and out, no probs. I guess the other slaves don't want out bad enough.
    • the accents are ridiculous. I wasn't sure if it was East Asian, Italian, English. It was a mess. I would figure their accents to be Germanic, for some reason that I can't explain, but, hey, just pick one.
  • Was the resolution of the film reached in a timely/reasonable manner: Sorry, no. There was build-up, build-up, build-up and then, the bad guy dies. In about a second. In a lame-ass way. The plot arc would look like a cliff. Not so great
  • Cinematography/imagery/special effects: Yup, this movie had 'em. Landscape, check, believable CGI animals, check, incredible recreations of pyramids and people crawling all over them, check.
Bottom line, this movie gets 2.5 eggs out of 5.
My recommendation: only RENT this movie, and only if nothing else is in the store.

1 comments:

Echloe said...

Hey esharp. I am huge clan of the cave bear,and the whole earth's children series. And I was psyched to see adds for this film too. So thanks for the review. I'll wait for it to come out on video.

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