10,000 BC had all the intentions of being one of the best movies since Quest For Fire. To get a sense of what the movie was attempting to live up to, combine 300, Clan of the Cavebear and Apocolypo together. Unfortunately, the movie falls short in quite a few areas.
The Truth :
10,000 BC has so many gaping holes in the storyline, it was a little too much too handle. The plot was there, it could have been a wonderful film for the ages, but it failed to deliver on almost every level. Why am I being so picky on a movie that takes place 10,000 BC?
Well, if someone made a movie about the O.K Corral and had Doc Holiday shooting people with an M16 while Wyatt Erp shot at the Clanton’s while in a Hummer, they’d be in an uproar and mocking the film openly. For some reason, nobody cared in this film, they just make up events and history with no regard to an actual prehistoric timeline.
The Details :
I’m not trying to rip the film apart, but attention to details is something the film just didn’t do.
My top 10 factual brain farts for 10,000 BC
Eighteen foot long sabre tooth tigers didn’t exist in this era. Kind of a glaring hole in the plot considering the Sabre Tooth was the animal which fulfilled the proficy and united the African tribes.
Teeth : Everyone had them, and they were whiter than mine. Half a dozen of the “prehistoric” men looked like they just came from the dentist.
Beards : Shaved and cut closer than a baby’s bottom
How do you kill a Mamoth with a little spear, by sticking him just above the leg?
How do you trek across the mountain tops, in the middle of winter, without dying?
The tribe walks from snowy mountain tops to tropical forrests and to the desert with no effort or time lost.
Metalworking – first copper, then bronze, then iron – Would not be in place for another 5000 years, or so. Yet they had all these tools at their disposal.
Earliest known use of horses for domestic use? Approximately 4000 BC after the setting of this movie.
Pyramids? The earliest was around 2630 BC, the film is off by over 7,000 years.
Mamoths as domesticated work animals? Not ever.
The earliest known ships were papyrus reed boats built by the Egyptians about 4000 B.C. The Greeks and Phoenicians didn’t begin trading by ship until around 1200 B.C.
Corn. The seeds that one of the African tribesman gives at the end to the hero of the movie are mainly composed of corn seeds… Corn is from America, and wasn’t brought to the old world until the 16th century AD.
LOL? Who’s writing this stuff, Walt Disney?
The Action :
There’s action, but nothing really memorable.
The Effects :
Ah, this is where the movie stood out! Incredible effects along the quality of Jurassic Park. Fantasic visuals of an Egyptian Empire being built and creatures of a distant past are brought to life.
The Verdict :
10,000 BC grossed 270 Million dollars, which is a credit to its marketing team. I wonder how many people watched it and said.. “Decent film that did no research into the time period” I suspect quite a few did.
So what did I really think of the movie? Its near the bottom of my list for movies on this era. At least Darryl Hanna showed us here boobs in Clan of the Cavebear. Rae Dawn Chong got naked for us in Quest for Fire, a much better adaptation of the era. Its an average movie, made for the uninformed movie-goer who just wants to be entertained.
Guess there’s nothing wrong with that, thats why the Die Hard franchise is so successful. I mean, did we really need a Die Hard 4? I need a little more than this in a movie, 10,000 BC really didn’t live up to the hype.. it was an average movie at best. If you like average movies that don’t live up to the hype, you’ll enjoy it.
Tags: Action 2008, Camilla Belle, DVD Review