The filmmaker who launched a UFO invasion in Independence Day and unleashed the forces of global warming in The Day After Tomorrow now unveils a new day of adventure a time when mammoths shake the earth and mystical spirits shape human fates. Roland Emmerich directs 10000 BC the eye-filling tale of the first hero. That hero is young hunter D?Leh (Steven Strait) set out on a bold trek to rescue his kidnapped beloved (Camilla Belle) and fulfill his prophetic destiny. He?ll face an awesome saber-toothed tiger. Cross uncharted realms. Form an army. And uncover an advanced but corrupt Lost Civilization. There he will lead a fight for liberation ? and become the champion of the time when legend began.System Requirements:Running Time: 109 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/HEROES Rating: PG-13 UPC: 085391139683 Manufacturer No: 1000023986
To anyone who has ever yearned to see woolly mammoths in full stampede across the Alps, 10,000 BC can be heartily recommended. There's also a flock of "terror birds"--lethal ostriches on steroids--in a steaming jungle only a splice away from the heroes' snow-dusted alpine habitat. And lo, somewhere in the vastness of the North African desert lies a city whose slave inhabitants alternately teem like the crowds in Quo Vadis during the burning of Rome and trudge in hieratically menacing formations like the workers in Metropolis. That's pretty much it for the cool stuff. Setting movies in prehistoric times is dicey. Apart from the "Dawn of Man" sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey, only Quest for Fire makes the grade, and its creators had the good sense to limit the dialogue to grunts and moans. 10,000 BC boasts a quasi-biblical narrator (Omar Sharif) and characters who speak in formed, albeit uninteresting, sentences--including a New Age-y "I understand your pain." But let no one say the storytelling isn't primitive. The narrator speaks of "the legend of the child with the blue eyes" and bingo, here's the kid now. When, grown up to be Camilla Belle, she's carried off by "four-legged demons"--guys on horseback to you--the neighbor boy (Steven Strait) who hankers to make myth with her leads a rescue mission into the great unknown world beyond their mountaintop. His name is D'Leh, which is Held, the German for "knight," spelled backward. So yes, there is some hidden meaning after all.
10,000 BC is the latest triumph of the ersatz from writer-director Roland Emmerich. Like Stargate (1994), Independence Day (1996), and The Day After Tomorrow (2004) before it, it's shamelessly cobbled together out of every movie Emmerich can remember to pilfer from (though to be fair, the section in pre-ancient Egypt harks back to his own Stargate). Emmerich's saving grace is that his films' cheesiness is so flagrant, his narratives so geared for instant gratification, he can seem like a kid simultaneously improvising and acting out a story in his backyard: "P'tend there's this alien ... p'tend maybe he came from Atlantis or something...." Just don't p'tend it has anything to do with real moviemaking. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 2.5 / 5.0
Hey, it's a fun movie, really.:
I just love to tag the idiots who think they're so smooth panning a movie because they're above it all. Get a life! If you wrote a review you must have seen, or heard others comment. It was good, clean fun, not action packed idiocy throughout - some just don't get that. The film is reminiscent of Gibsons 'Apocalypto', not much acting, but a story line that wasn't lost in the telling, and an ending worthy of good fantasy - three and a half stars.
Great Mythology:
10,000 BC is the greatest movie ever made. It is an imaginative interpretation of the past that connects us to who we are today. It is timeless mythology that could be told to hunter and gathers around a camp fire, and also touch our human yearning for mythology today. Our need for mythology has not changed in 12,000 years. We are basically the same humans. 10,000 BC celebrates the beautiful social bonding humans have with each other, and says this quality is really what makes us civilized. It... more info
SLOW:
Very slow and not interesting at all, i had to shut it off halfway through...
a surprise hit:
My daughter (15 yrs old) wanted this, so I purchased the DVD, thinking it would be a typical teens' adventure film, long on action and short on sense. I was pleasantly surprised..... the plot is limited, and more than little free with the geographical locations of historical events, but the filmed settings and scenery are spectacular, the acting more than credible, and there is nice story line with a satisfactory "good guys win" ending. It kept me entertained throughout, even on the second viweing. So if... more info
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