10,000 BC is the kind of B-movie cheese that used to make Saturday matinees such sticky, noisy fun, with audiences thrilled at the sight of superhuman heroes battling otherworldly creatures in faraway places.
Today, we must make do with the likes of action director Roland Emmerich, who takes the time-honored Hollywood tradition of spectacle, overkill and narrative absurdity and manages to zap almost all the fun out of it.
The problem is that Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) takes himself way too seriously in 10,000 BC, in which a gentle prehistoric hunter-gatherer played by Steven Strait finds his inner warrior. One part Joseph Campbell hero quest, one part multi-culti morality tale, one part live-action Flintstones cartoon, 10,000 BC is finally every part just plain nuts, from a hike featuring more ecosystems than an Al Gore documentary to a wacky climax set amid pyramids that wouldn't have been built for another 7,000 years or so.
Questionable costumes
Strait plays D'Leh, a member of a mountain-dwelling tribe that depends for sustenance on an annual hunt for the giant woolly mammoth (which no Ice Age fan will see without superimposing the sad-eyed visage of Ray Romano).
When D'Leh manages to fell the biggest mammoth of 'em all, he wins the hand of Evolet (Camilla Belle), a blue-eyed beauty who was adopted by the tribe as a child. When a band of warlords invades their settlement, making off with Evolet and a boy named Baku (Nathanael Baring), D'Leh and master hunter Tic Tic (Cliff Curtis) set off on , what else? an epic journey during which D'Leh will be tested in strength, devotion and how much he can look like a cross between Bob Marley and Jack Sparrow.
And that's harder than it sounds, because everyone, man, woman and child looks like a cross between Bob Marley and Jack Sparrow in 10,000 BC, which is as heavy on dreadlocks and kohl eyeliner as it is light on anything resembling historical authenticity. (This is the kind of movie where The Past is represented by actors affecting fake British accents, and pretty lame ones at that.)
'Lost civilisation'
Along the way, D'Leh and Tic Tic meet up with various tribes who, outfitted in impeccably styled skins, beads and piercings, agree to help them with their mission. On a trek that goes from mountain plateaus to jungle to desert in what seems to be a scant few days, the group winds up in what looks like Giza if it were the third millennium BC and not the 10th.
Emmerich preempts historical criticism by calling this fictional society a "lost civilisation”. And who's counting, anyway? In 10,000 BC, it's computer effects, not logic, that reign supreme, like so many little digital pharaohs. And Emmerich admittedly succeeds in delivering some eye-popping moments. There are a couple of very cool sequences involving a huge saber-toothed tiger, as well as a scary chase with prehistoric ostriches described in the film's production notes as "terror birds”.
Spectacular locations
A scene featuring slave ships, their crimson sails gloriously unfurled, provides a welcome note of lyricism in a movie otherwise devoted to guys grunting and fighting. (The spectacular locations where 10,000 BC was filmed include New Zealand, Namibia and South Africa.)
But the art of screen spectacle is knowing how to calibrate the action for example, featuring one improbably dead-on spear throw, not two so that you don't step, woolly mammoth-like, on your own money shots. Emmerich knows nothing of such restraint, so instead of being a big, dumb, expensive guilty pleasure, 10,000 BC winds up feeling like a big, dumb, expensive cheat.
Raking it in?
BC could translate to 'Big Cash', if director Roland Emmerich's previous hits are anything to go by
It could be The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day or 10,000 BC, but one thing is certain: filmmaker Roland Emmerich has the calendar marked for mayhem.
Although critics dismiss the director as a master of vapid disaster, he delivers where it counts for Hollywood studios — at the box office. Emmerich's last four movies, Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot and The Day After Tomorrow, racked up almost $2 billion (Dh7.34 billion) combined in worldwide ticket sales.
His prehistoric adventure 10,000 BC, opening today across the UAE and tomorrow at 3,400 theatres in the US and Canada, will top this weekend's box-office charts, but the question is by how much.
Facts and figures
Bullish box-office analysts say consumer tracking surveys point as high as $50 million (Dh183 million). According to one research service, 84 per cent of movie goers are aware of the picture, and it is ranked as first choice by a potent 30 per cent of males under 25.
Warner Bros., which released the Spartan battle epic 300 to a March record of $70.9 million (Dh260 million) on the same weekend a year ago, is tempering expectations by forecasting a solid but unspectacular opening-weekend gross of $28 million (Dh102 million) to $32 million (Dh117 million). The studio and its partner Legendary Pictures produced the PG-13 movie for nearly $100 million (Dh367 million).
With a cast headed by unknowns Steven Strait and Camilla Belle, it's no wonder Emmerich is the de facto star. The movie is being heavily marketed as, "From the director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow.”
Holiday luck
The ad campaign also emphasises the impressive visuals that have become the director's hallmark, such as Strait's crouching hunter character squaring off in silhouette against a towering sabre-toothed tiger.
Warner Brothers chose the opening date partly to take advantage of the staggered spring breaks at schools across the US over the next few weeks, which create a mini-summer for the business. Holidays helped 300 amass $456 million (Dh1,674 million) worldwide last year.
In the UAE
Catch 10,000 BC in cinemas across the UAE from Thursday
