Having built his name over the years with one eye-popping blockbuster after another, it has become pretty difficult for Roland Emmerich to find his peak masterpiece. It is expected of any Hollywood director to have at least one less-than-stellar project, which doesn't play out as well as previous outings. In this case, 10,000 B.C. is that film.
10,000 B.C. Story Synopsis
10,000 B.C. relates the pretty strightforward tale of D'Leh (Steven Strait), a young warrior in the Yaghal tribe, a nomadic band of woolly mammoth hunters. As we see the young hunters quickly evolve into men of the tribe (by way of cleverly edited dissolves -- ahh the magic of movies), we discover that D'Leh is the son of a clan warrior who went missing years before, bringing shame to his now orphaned son.
As events unfold, we discover that D'Leh is in love with the clan's most beautiful girl, Evolet (Camilla Belle). She is to be the clan's next great seer, one who can guide the clan to the next herd through visions, and who can spiritually protect her group.
Of course, this makes for a very slow story, and so in a timely fashion, an evil horde of horsemen come and kidnap her, and it's up to D'Leh and his fellow warriors to pursue these abductors, and recover the damsel in distress. The rest of the film relates their advanture through unknown lands, seeing new (albeit anachronistic) wonders.
The Visuals and Cast of 10,000 B.C.
Having decided to set his story in the titular timeline, Emmerich had to count on at least some of his 105 million dollar budget to cover the basics - namely the large mammoths being hunted in the film, as well as other now-extinct creatures of the time, not to mention awe-inspiring landscapes. This allowed very little wiggle room to afford a top notch A-List cast.
The filmmaker, who is known for creating collaborative ensemble groups of actors in most of his movies (see Independence Day), thus decided to pick out about a half dozen up and coming names, who wouldn't take too much away from the overall effect of the story and its setting. After all, why spend millions on a CGI mountain range, if you'll be too busy focusing on all too popular Tom Cruise in a close-up shot?
There are several historical inacurracies in this film, most of them archeological and architectural in nature. The producers were obviously going for the big panoramic visuals. Whether they are plausible given the time this tale is set, seems irrelevant. This doesn't necessarily hurt the film; at worst, it may cause some scholars to leave the room, but that's about it.
As for the visuals themselves, they sadly don't add too much to the story. Jean-Jacques Annaud did much better with rocky terrain in Quest For Fire, with much less money. Despite the money spent, Emmerich makes same mistake as he did with Godzilla, putting too much emphasis on visual effects, and very little on story. The end result? No one seems to care.
The cast of actors aren't necessarily to blame. They make the best of what they have, working through the motions of a pretty questionable script, with very stilted dialogue, trying to give each scene a sense of prehistoric timelessness. They honorably fail to reach that goal.
A villain is hinted at late in the film, calling himself The Almighty, an all controlling warlord safely tucked away in his Pre-Egyptian pyramid (one of the aforementioned anachronisms). There are tentative clues which lead us to speculate he may be an Atlantean, however this is never used to its full potential, and brings nothing to the story. There's simply not enough antagonistic presence to really stir interest or cause fear.
Note: The bare-bones version of this DVD has an alternate ending (not much of one, given the original ending), as well as additional scenes not seen in theatres.
Overall Analysis of 10,000 B.C.
Overall, this film looks like an amazing place to go spend two hours of cinematic running time, except there very little to do there. Think of 10,000 B.C. as an epic film where the family and relatives go camping, and spend the bulk of their time there looking for their lost niece in the woods.
It's is highly doubtful that a higher caliber cast would have been able to do much more than this cast did, the problem residing in the script and uneven production values.
Let us hope Roland Emmerich's next planned project, a top-cast film called 2012, performs much better than this film. At least the reported cast of the upcoming post-apocalyptic sci-fi flick is better known, and is sure to bring in more audiences into the theatres.
