One bad choice can be enough to ruin a movie. But 10,000? That sets you back a lot, as in to prehistoric times. I hadn’t seen a movie in the theaters for a while, so I decided it was about time to pay another visit. It was post-Oscars time anyway, and the theaters were sure to be filled with entertainment movies. 10,000 B.C. drew me with the menacing woolly mammoths I’d seen in trailers, so I accepted its lure. I’m not usually one for hyped up movies that seem to solely promise a ton of action and thrill, but I decided it was time to give these kinds of movies another chance. After all, I didn’t think judging a movie before watching it was quite right.



Settled in my chair, my notebook and pen waiting anxiously in my grip, I waited for the commercials to end. I told myself, at least the visuals in the trailers of 10,000 B.C. looked pretty good. I was feeling iffy about the choice, though. I had no idea what the story was about; all I really cared about was seeing how the director imagined the landscape 12,000 years ago. As the theater dimmed and the cell phone and baby began their wailing, I nervously tried to reassure myself that this could be good.

The story is about a man named D’Leh (Steven Strait) destined to become the Hunter who battles an evil people. He falls in love with a girl named Evolet (Camilla Belle), whose kidnapping during a ransack of the tribe’s members drives his pursuit of the enemy. During the course of the story, he discovers his identity and learns about his father, who left when D’Leh was a child. Finally, he’s confronted with a choice between his love and his duty as a warrior.

About halfway through, I realized I was distracted. I was feeling nothing. The characters were as flat as the screen they were on. But I told myself, maybe you’re just blinded by your initial judgment of this movie. Keep on watching – who knows, it might get better.

But the rest of the movie was just as bland as the beginning. The plot was an overtly familiar story slapped on as a backdrop to display the graphics, which was the sole aspect of the film worthy of any credit. The woolly mammoths, prehistoric birds, and saber-toothed tiger were created with great attention. That’s no surprise, since Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, directed. The grandiosity of the creatures, along with that of the architecture, was what caught my interest, even though the animals moved unrealistically at times and weren’t incorporated nearly as much as I thought they would be. Most of the movie is just men talking and traveling.

During a scene in which the characters are confronted with giant, vicious birds, I was subjected to nausea from an intense jerking of the camera. Old Mother (Mona Hammond), the wise soothsayer, inaccurately predicts the future more than once. Perhaps that’s a realistic take on the success rates of these seers, but it makes us wary of her, especially when the camera returns to her every once in a while to see her simply mimic what the men miles away are doing. In terms of the men’s navigation, it seems uncanny that they can find the trinkets Evolet leaves behind for them, especially after a heavy snowfall covers up the enemy’s tracks. As if to prove just how few original ideas the writers had, we are forced to listen to a speech in which D’Leh begins with something along the lines of, “We, the people of Yagahl, hunt the mightiest beast…” Thus it was not shocking to find that Emmerich and Harold Kloser wrote this masterpiece (Emmerich’s talent with words is not worth mentioning, and this was composer Kloser’s first attempt as a writer – unfortunately, these two pens will be pairing up again for the movie 2012).

All in all, I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers had hung a list on their wall that looked something like this:

Things to Include in a Good Movie:
o Love (for the girls who got dragged in to see it with their bfs – duh)
o Morals (the main character is a good person, just in case you didn’t know)
o Underdog turning into leader (this is revolutionary! Inspiring!)
o Big fighting scene (no, really? What a shock!)
o Evil priests (where have I seen this before?)
o Cool CGI (yes, I’ll admit I fell for that trick, but they really were quite nice)
o Profundity (to get our brains working because of course most of us aren’t here just for entertainment)
o A variety of locations (we’ll cover all the exciting places – mountains, jungles, deserts, savannas – wow, ain’t this an adventure?)
o Funny jokes (there were about two of them, and, of course, they definitely didn’t make the movie awkward – *cough*)
o Happy ending (this is a happy cheery story, right?)

Usually after a movie I stick around for the credits; I like to pay homage to the people who make films. This time, let’s just say it didn’t take very long for me to get out of there. It irked me that, with all the money put into making this movie, it didn’t satisfy any part of me. They could’ve made better use of their resources. When I discovered that Emmerich had also directed The Patriot, I was even more disappointed considering his potential to create entertaining, if not deep, movies. What did I gain from this viewing? Nothing – except for the reinforcement of my belief that many of these straight entertainment movies have no substance whatsoever. And right when Juno was giving me hope.

If you ever become bored enough with your list of “Things to do on a Rainy Day” to watch it, 10,000 B.C. will make you wonder just how many bad choices the creators had to make in order to end up with such a movie.