10,000 B.C. DVD Review
Director/writer Roland Emmerich (Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, The Patriot) has fallen prey to what a lot of talented people in Hollywood fall prey too. I’ll call it the reverse success effect. His career started off with great promise, but through the years, it has dwindled down to failed attempts at entertainment. Emmerich’s latest film, 10,000 B.C., proves he has indeed hit rock bottom.
10,000 B.C. is about a clan that includes D’Leh (Steven Strait), a young hunter, and Evolet (Camilla Belle), a blue-eyed orphan embraced by the elders in the hopes she will fulfill a great prophecy. When, during an attack by outsiders, Evolet is taken from the clan by rivals and held captive, D’Leh and various clan members travel across the vast, harsh landscape to rescue her.
Where films like Jurassic Park nailed prehistoric effects superbly, 10,000 B.C. makes this prehistoric world look downright silly. Sure, there are gigantic grazing mammoths and scary saber-tooth tigers, but most of the time the actors appear to be acting on a small set in front of a fake backdrop thatís at best cheesy and at worst ridiculous.
The only redeeming storyline in the film revolves around Strait (The Covenant, Undiscovered, Sky High) and Belle (When A Stranger Calls, The Quiet, The Chumscrubber, The Ballad Of Jack And Rose), who are supposed to be star-crossed lovers, but that storyline quickly devolves without much of a foundation to begin with.
Narrator Omar Sharif is probably the biggest name attached to this film, which also stars Cliff Curtis (Live Free or Die Hard, Fracture, Sunshine, The Fountain, Runaway Jury), as well as a dozen other actors Iíve never seen before or heard of.
10,000 B.C. is presented in both full screen (1.33:1) and anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1), with audio in Dolby Digital 5.1 and subtitles in English, French and Spanish. Extras are sparse and include an alternate ending, several deleted scenes, and two short featurettes. The first, “Inspiring an Epic”, features Graham Hancock, author of Fingerprints of the Gods, sharing his theories about prehistoric times. The second, “A Wild and Woolly Ride”, is behind the scenes with set design.
Thereís nothing new to be learned by watching 10,000 B.C. The fact that over half of the film is devoted to boring mythology, clan bonding, and an antagonist that is never shown outright furthers the downward spiral of the film. Whatís more, because the characters are so one-dimensional, thereís no payoff in investing a full 109 minutes to find out the outcome. In the end, 10,000 B.C. is a very boring take on prehistoric times that tries very hard to take itself seriously but comes off as one big, boring joke.
10,000 B.C. is rated ìPG-13 for sequences of intense action and violenceî and has a 109-minute run time.