10000 BC is a prehistoric epic from director Roland Emmerich, who made sci-fi extravaganzas Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. The title 10000BC also describes just how old this story feels.
It might be set 10 millennia before the birth of Christ – 5000 years before recorded history – but what our caveman's wants feels very familiar.
He wants to bring home the mammoth meat, marry his blue-eyed girl and climb the tribal ladder by claiming the sacred spear. But when his cavegirl is snatched by barbarians from foreign lands, he has to unite the tribes to get her back and bring down their evil Empire.
What 10000BC offers is about as sophisticated as a cave painting. There are lots of dreadlocked warrior dudes shaking spears and spouting English dialogue so bad it makes you wish for caveman grunts. But there's also a narrator in case we're too dumb to understand this quest for dire.
The mammoth fx are impressive but the saber tooth tiger gets only a ridiculously cuddly cameo. And that leaves the main threat as giant chickens.
10000BC, which tells us mammoths built the pyramids, runs like a fourth grader's guestimation of history. But there's also a disturbing subtext in a movie that has
villains who're Middle Eastern-styled religious zealots in need of sub-titles.
I assume it's an unintended irony the baddies are raising great architecture, have maps and writing, astronomy and navigation – all of which has to be burned to the ground
I wish Roland Emmerich hadn't already made the flop Godzilla because then he might've abandoned pseudo realism and had his caveman taking on T-Rexes.
As a primitive, lumbering beast 10000BC rates one and a half stars.
