Rama’s SCREEN

It’s amazing how a movie can seem so promising by what’s offered in its previews, billboards and posters everywhere… but you can end up very disappointed. 10,000 B.C. lacks every bit of excitement that it seemed to have. It’s got a few ‘Wows!’ but mostly ‘That’s lame!’ To be fair, I knew it was going to be a stinker, because… a journey with director Roland Emmerich is hit and miss. The Patriot was his best movie so far, but 10,000 B.C.… all I can say is that I’m glad I didn’t have to pay for the ticket.

10,000 B.C. follows a young hunter (Steven Strait) on his quest to lead an army across a vast desert, battling saber tooth tigers and prehistoric predators as he unearths a lost civilization and attempts to rescue the woman he loves (Camilla Belle) from an evil warlord determined to possess her.

I went to the world premiere of 10,000 B.C. Wednesday night sitting in Grauman’s Chinese Theater with the same people who are involved in the movie and with actors, models, musicians who are trying to make it in Hollywood. My friend Bryan Meert who started filmmetro.com was there. Good looking people were chatting left and right; it was interesting to see faces and bodies that seem ever-ready for the magazines. I guess fame is all right, but if I get to that point, I sure hope I don’t become like any of those stuck-up rich bastards whose heads get so big they can’t fit through the entrance.
Always remember the little people (I’m not specifically just talking about Danny Devito’s people)

Back to the movie, for some weird reason, Roland Emmerich and his gang watched 300 and Apocalypto and decided to make a similar version.
I kid you not, this movie has scenes that would remind you of those two movies.

* The way the hero kills the giant meat-eating bird (young King Leonidas killed the wolf by sticking his spear into the back of its throat)
* The way the hero throw the spear at the freakishly tall bad guy, the almighty, and the difference with 300 is that his spear actually killed the creepy dude.
* The way the characters are running through the thick forest, running away from those stupid giant birds, it reminds me of the way the hero in Apocalypto ran from the panther.
* Not to mention the invasion and destruction by another civilization that visits the village.

The problem with 10,000 B.C. is that it doesn’t come close to how awesome 300 and Apocalypto were.
10,000 B.C. has a terrible writing and bad acting. The dialogue is cheesy, you can’t help but laugh when they try to say something serious or whenever they put on their serious faces.
The mammoths look pretty cool but for the most part, the CGI isn’t done smoothly.
On top of that, this movie spends too much time on unnecessary scenes and when they deal with something we’d like to see developed further like the struggle of the ‘rescue team’ or that we want to see or feel more of the romance between the two lovers, those scenes… they go by way too quickly.

The art direction is all right, the special effects helped turn the pyramid that they built into something that looks like it’s got a life of its own, massive and populated. That’s probably the few sights that are worth seeing.
The story is predictable, it’s not original. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, they fall in love, girl gets in trouble, boy must save girl, boy becomes more than he expects to be, boy lives his destiny, girl comes back to life… happily ever after…lalalala.
You’ve seen it or heard it before somewhere and whatever that something else was, it was definitely much better than this.

* Place the cursor on the picture below to check my grade for this film