The only thing that saves 10,000 B.C. from being a complete waste of time is hunky Steven Strait as a man out to rescue his woman (and a few hundred other people) from the baddies. Other than that, this movie is full of unfulfilled promise.
From Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow (one of my all time favorite disaster films), you expect a good deal of visual effects. And the trailer for 10,000 B.C. certainly seemed to say this would be one of those visual feasts. Unfortunately, it’s not. Yes, there are the hunters chasing the mammoths, but this is early in the movie and then there’s a lot of walking… walking… walking… and attack by giant ostrich-looking-things and… walking… walking… walking (did I mention walking)? There are some nice vistas and landscapes in this movie, but those aren’t the visuals I was expecting to see.
The film also suffers from some unexpected laughs. The giant ostriches nearly cracked me up. The things that Emmerich tried to make foreboding and scary, once they were revealed were just funny. And the big, bad guy (or god as they tried to make you believe) reminded me of Ra, the big bad emperor from Emmerich’s Stargate (a movie I loathed). This long finger-nailed “god,” along with his long finger-nailed servants were also funny.
Most of all, the movie feels long. At only 1h 49m, it felt more like 2h 30m because everything is so drawn out. There’s always one more mountain to climb or some more sand to walk on.
All-in-all, should’ve waited for cable for this one. Watching on HD would’ve been fine because what should’ve been a great movie for the big screen just wasn’t.
