Saturday, March 8, 2008

10,000 B.C.

If there's a lesson to be learned from Roland Emmerich's worst movie yet, it's that to never let your music composer help pen your screenplay (Harold Kloser had a hand in writing the story, and was also the guy responsible for the movie's music).

The title incidentally describes the age of the plot accurately. There's nothing new to be seen here: Apocalypto practically scooped this movie. And even if that movie was not as visually fancy, it sure is twice as gritty and gripping.

You see, I don't mind movies that are all style and no substance. Most big budget movies nowadays are exactly that, and I do get my fair share of enjoyment from them. But alas, 10,00 B.C. is not as visually exciting as Emmerich's previous films. And what is most painful is that this movie somehow manages to outdo Star Wars in terms of wooden, corny lines. Almost every single piece of dialogue spoken is utterly unimaginative.

The premise is simple: You have a hero (Steven Strait, whose looks middle somewhere between Brad Pitt and Colin Farrell) and a damsel in distress (Camilla Belle, who is in there to provide a pretty face and also possibly serve as the MacGuffin).

There is no saving grace in this movie to make it worth watching. Do you remember the saber-tooth you saw in the trailers and the posters? It's not a saber-tooth. It's the deus ex machina, only there to play it's usual cameo role, and subsequently vanish. No, the main killers in these movie are regular men (boooring) and man-eating ostriches (scary!).

Those who watch this sad excuse of a movie either were ignorant (excusable enough, since I was one of them!) or downright masochistic. Only go to see it if you can stomach non-stop corniness. Oh, and lots of woolly mammoths. How fun.

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