BC' is a terribly outdated way to classify periods of time, it was
replaced by BCE, to denote "before common era" and AD was replaced by
CE (meaning "common era"), these changes were made specifically to
remove religious references, and Jesus and science are simply
incompatible. None of this phased Roland Emmerich, with his latest
film, '10,000 BC', which could best be described as a lame re-imagining
of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. It covers much of the same ground, but is
set much further in the past, and does not quite pay as much attention
to authenticity. Take, for instance, the fact that out of the tribes of
cavemen we see here, some speak English and some don't. The special
effects are not even that impressive, despite the large budget. The
Mammoths and Sabertooth Tigers were actually rendered much more
convincingly in Ice Age with computer animation. I half expected to see
dinosaurs lumbering about, even though they had been extinct for
millions of years; that is one detail Emmerich got right. Humans were
still in the early stages of evolution, up against hostile environments
and more imposing mammalian creatures that outweighed them by several
tons. The mammoth, for its parts, was pretty much harmless, unless you
make them mad, like a furry elephant really. The main character, D'Leh (Steven Strait) hunts mammoths, and tries to
deal with the stigma of being the child of a coward, since his father
left the tribe when he was a boy. D'Leh will eventually emerge as the
leader of his tribe, its strongest warrior, but he will have to
overcome the trial of rescuing his love, Evolet (Camilla Belle), from
those who have taken her, as both slave and sacrifice, which will of
course prove his worth, and show his willingness to avenge the tribe
after its village has been attacked and plundered. There are some
battle sequences, the best one probably with the Sabertooth, but there
also groups of human enemies to beat up, as well, slice and dice
perhaps, but the camera constantly cuts away so as to safeguard the
PG-13 rating by not showing much in the way of gore. A few severed
limbs here and there would not have been so bad. The movie runs out of steam rather early, becomes long-winded and
tedious, largely because it takes itself a bit too seriously and does
not contain enough action. The romantic aspects of the story are not
explored too deeply, and we can all be grateful for that. Strait
provides a superficial and forgettable hero, but he does display his
chest a lot, which may be a plus. Some of the buildings here look like
they were inspired by Mayan and Egyptian architecture, which is
strange, but then temples are always more elaborate than anything else
in ancient civilizations. The cinematography does have its moments,
accentuating the natural beauty of the various settings, which include
deserts and rain forests, habitats that are not usually that close
together, so I wonder where exactly these events are supposed to have
occurred. SOURCE OF THIS STORY