10,000 BC (2008)

User Rating:

4.9/10   

Director:

Roland Emmerich

Writers (WGA):

Roland Emmerich (written by) &
Harald Kloser (written by)

Release Date:

7 March 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

It takes a hero to change the world.

Plot:

A prehistoric epic that follows a young mammoth hunter's journey through uncharted territory to secure the future of his tribe.

Plot Keywords:

Hunter | Epic | Prehistoric | Tribe | Mammoth

US TV Schedule:

Sat. July 11	6:00 PM	HBO
Wed. July 15	10:30 AM	HBO

Cast

Steven Strait	...	D'Leh
Camilla Belle	...	Evolet
Cliff Curtis	...	Tic'Tic
Joel Virgel	...	Nakudu
Affif Ben Badra	...	Warlord (as Ben Badra)
Mo Zinal	...	Ka'Ren (as Mo Zainal)
Nathanael Baring	...	Baku
Mona Hammond	...	Old Mother
Marco Khan	...	One-Eye
Reece Ritchie	...	Moha
Joel Fry	...	Lu'kibu
Omar Sharif	...	Narrator
Kristian Beazley	...	D'Leh's Father
Junior Oliphant	...	Tudu
Louise Tu'u	...	Baku's Mother

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence.

Runtime:

109 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | Dolby Digital | DTS

Certification:

Ireland:12A | Finland:K-13 | Australia:M | Singapore:PG | South Korea:15 | Malaysia:U | Germany:12 | UK:12A | Canada:14A (British Columbia) | Philippines:G (MTRCB) | Canada:G (Québec) | New Zealand:M | Canada:PG (Alberta/Manitoba/Ontario) | Argentina:13 | USA:PG-13 (certificate #43907) | Norway:11 | Sweden:11 | Czech Republic:12 | South Africa:13V | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Hong Kong:IIA | Portugal:M/12 | Netherlands:12 | Japan:U | Iceland:12

Filming Locations:

Namibia

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The most difficult challenge for the visual effects department was creating a computer generated wet saber-tooth tiger since it required several of the most challenging elements of visual effects to be combined; fur, wet fur, water and creature animation. The tiger was created by the Double Negative visual effects company.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: The terror birds that attacked in the forest lived in South America not Europe, Asia, or Africa.

Quotes:

D'Leh: [speaking to the spear-tooth] You must remember me. I gave you life.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "HBO First Look: '10,000 BC': The Making of an Epic World (#15.4)" (2008)

OK, just OK

To anyone who has ever yearned to see woolly mammoths in full stampede across the Alps, 10,000 BC can be heartily recommended. There's also a flock of "terror birds"--lethal ostriches on steroids--in a steaming jungle only a splice away from the heroes' snow-dusted alpine habitat. And lo, somewhere in the vastness of the North African desert lies a city whose slave inhabitants alternately teem like the crowds in Quo Vadis during the burning of Rome and trudge in hieratic ally menacing formations like the workers in Metropolis. That's pretty much it for the cool stuff. Setting movies in prehistoric times is dicey. Apart from the "Dawn of Man" sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey, only Quest for Fire makes the grade, and its creators had the good sense to limit the duologue to grunts and moans. 10,000 BC boasts a quasi-biblical narrator (Omar Sharif) and characters who speak in formed, albeit uninteresting, sentences--including a New Age–y "I understand your pain." But let no one say the storytelling isn't primitive. The narrator speaks of "the legend of the child with the blue eyes" and bingo, here's the kid now. When, grown up to be Camilla Belle, she's carried off by "four-legged demons"--guys on horseback to you--the neighbor boy (Steven Strait) who hankers to make myth with her leads a rescue mission into the great unknown world beyond their mountaintop. His name is D'Leh, which is Held, the German for "knight," spelled backward. So yes, there is some hidden meaning after all. 10,000 BC is the latest triumph of the ersatz from writer-director Roland Emmerich. Like Stargate (1994), Independence Day (1996), and The Day After Tomorrow (2004) before it, it's shamelessly cobbled together out of every movie Emmerich can remember to pilfer from (though to be fair, the section in per-ancient Egypt harks back to his own Stargate). Emmerich's saving grace is that his films' cheesiness is so flagrant, his narratives so geared for instant gratification, he can seem like a kid simultaneously improvising and acting out a story in his backyard: "P'tend there's this alien ... p'tend maybe he came from Atlantis or something...." Just don't p'tend it has anything to do with real movie-making.

Starring: Steven Strait, Camilla Belle, Cliff Cirtus, Joel Virgel. Director: Roland Emmerich.