Eye Of The Tiger | Caveman Steven Strait finds himself a long way from Rock Vegas in 10,000 B.C.
10,000 B.C.
Directed by Roland Emmerich. Starring Steven Strait, Camilla Belle, Cliff Curtis. Now playing.
1 Star
As I start this review, I would just like to make a statement whose meaning will become clearer as you read on. Ready? Okay: I really like black jellybeans. Not a lot of people do. I pick them all out the first chance I get and then I eat them until my tongue feels raw. They’ve even made me a sick once or twice, but I always go back for a handful the next time.
Roland Emmerich is a lot like a black jellybean. Well, I guess it would be more accurate to say his movies are like black jellybeans. More people hate them than don’t. Some call his movies an acquired taste; others call them just plain crap. I’ve seen people get physically angry at the mention of Independence Day. Now, I happen to be a big fan of Emmerich’s; Stargate, Universal Soldier, and The Day After Tomorrow are some of my favourites. Many a night I’ve curled up to his movies, and not because I own them. I don’t need to—there are TV “superstations” out there that show his movies in near constant rotation, so I know I’m not the only fan he has. His movies break box office records almost every time a new one’s released.
Which begs the question: why would a director whose work is almost universally critically panned have such a loyal fanbase? Well, his films are guilty pleasures made specifically for geeky movie buffs like me, who just happen to have a soft spot for predictable, badly written, action-driven fluff.
And so it was in the beginning, well at least in 10,000 B.C.
The plot here is pretty much what you’d expect. I’d call it a caveboy coming-of-age story. D’leh (Steven Strait) is a young mammoth hunter trying to make a name for himself among his tribe. The mammoth are few and far between these days and the tribe’s witch-woman predicts things are going to get a whole lot worse before they get any better. D’leh has big plans: he’ll fulfill the prophecy (of course there’s a prophecy) and kill the bull mammoth, proving that he’s the chosen one (uh-huh, there’s a chosen one too) and a worthy husband for the blue eyed Evolet (Camilla Belle).
But things take a turn for the worse as the tribe is raided by strange and foreign “demons” on horseback who take whomever they don’t kill, including our caveboy’s beloved. Luckily D’leh, along with a few others, escape the slavers. He vows to follow them to the ends of the earth until he finds his true love. D’leh’s journey is perilous, but we watch the transformation from caveboy to caveman along the way. He faces mammoth stampedes, a vicious chickenosaurus attack, and tense encounters with neighbouring tribes that culminate in a showdown between our hairy heroes and the bizarre, pyramid-building strangers who are fulfilling a prophecy of their own.
Oh, Roland... you had me at mammoth stampede.
By the end of 10,000 B.C.,, I was kind of dizzy; my geeky synapses were firing all at once. I had a goofy grin plastered on my face and a near-uncontrollable urge to start a standing ovation as the credits rolled. Make no mistake: this is a really terrible movie. And I loved every second of it... but then again, I really like black jellybeans.
