Written by Mitch Cyrus

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Based on the hype and the special effects, we sent Mitch to the theaters to review 10,000 B.C. for us. At time of assignment, Mitch went strongly on record that he expected it to really stink. Unfettered, we sent him off to the theaters anyway. What did Mitch end up thinking of this prehistoric epic that follows a young mammoth hunter's journey through uncharted territory to secure the future of his tribe? Lets just say this. Rarely does he hand out the rating that it recieved.

Sometimes I should just pay attention to the numbers and stop trying to think. In the case of director Roland Emmerich, the films he has directed since he hit big time in 1994 with “Stargate” have been a bit of a Texas Two Step; two steps forward, one step back.

After “Stargate”, he had another thoroughly enjoyable movie with “Independence Day”, then stunk up the joint with one of the worst movies of all time, 1998’s “Godzilla” starring Matthew Broderick. He recovered in 2000 with something that never fails to entertain, a pissed off Mel Gibson killing bad people for revenge in “The Patriot”, and then followed up with another fantasy that scored big at the box office, 2004’s “The Day After Tomorrow”, the film voted “Most Likely To Never Appear In the Collection of a CEO at Exxon”.

2 Good Films…one piece of crap….2 Good Films…and now comes “10,000 B.C.”

Crap.

Brain-dead. Stupid. Boring. Pointless…I could go on and on. I’d rather watch “The Flintstones meet the Jetsons” on a week long endless loop than contemplating ever seeing this illogical waste of money ever again.

We start out with a voice-over from Omar Sharif introducing us to the characters. I was first shocked that Omar Sharif was still alive…I could swear he has to be at least 110 now (he’s actually only 75…a fact that surprised me). In any case, Omar tells us about D’Leh (Steven Straight) and Evolet (Camilla Belle), two people destined to free their people from the terror of the “four legged demons” (other tribesmen on horseback. No one said that these people were smart. More proof of that comes later).

Since Omar gave away the ending, I should have taken the hint and got the hell out of Dodge. But no, I had to stick around and watch the “epic” unfold.

D’Leh (D’Oh! would be more appropriate, so that’s what he gets called for the rest of the review), under the tutelage of Tic’Tic (you have GOT to be kidding) is trying to win the rights to beautiful but empty Evolet by showing his mastery at Mammoth hunting. Seriously…how hard of a job is finding a mammoth? They’re the size of a house, not that fast, and leave a trail of footprints the size of wading pools, and droppings the size of…never mind.

OK…he does have to kill them as well, which sometimes might just piss off the hairy elephant.

“Fresh” from his achievement, he returns to find out most of the village, including Evolet, have been kidnapped by the aforementioned “four legged demons” as slave labor for a pyramid they were trying to build (probably for the alien Ra from “Stargate”, just to complete the storyline). Miffed that his girl is missing, he takes off with Tic-Tac and some other non-descript villager to act as comic relief, vowing to save her.

Time for the Epic Journey!, where we get to see all kinds of exotic locations, strange creatures, and new cultures! It plays like a couple of episodes of “Star Trek”, where they encounter “strange new worlds” at every turn. And with each new village D’Oh! enters, he gets more recruits for the Big Army he’ll need to take down the Evil Empire (apologies to George Steinbrenner).

That’s it…that’s all you need to know about the plot. And if I could find the first draft of this script, I’m sure it would have less words than I’ve written so far.

To me, every time I thought I had seen something that couldn’t be topped in terms of mind-numbing dumbness, Roland hit the switch to “Ludicrous Speed!” and took it to another level of idiocy.

It starts with the “stars” themselves. Not only are they possessing actors’ resumes that rival professional corpses on “CSI” (and the corpses show more emotional range), both D’Oh! and Evolet possess perfect teeth 12,000 years before the invention of whitening strips. They make the Osmond Clan look like your stereotypical orthodontically challenged Brit in comparison. And Roland remembered some of his tricks from “Stargate”, once again having a girl who’s mascara remains perfect no matter what. And who knew that Cro Magnum Hot Chicks had access to such high quality razors to take care of that unsightly underarm hair?

We also have these slaves building pyramids…which didn’t happen until around 5,000 B.C., and also facing flesh eating ostriches, which died out around 15,000 B.C. What’s 10,000 years of historical accuracy anyway? And then we complete the round of ridiculous by having the worst CGI I’ve seen since the space monkey in “Lost In Space”, a saber-toothed tiger that ends up being pretty much D’Oh!’s pet. The rest of the movie is rather realistic in its effects…so this really stands out as cheesy.

I have no idea where Roland was going with this film. The “love story” that is supposed to be at the center of it all contains almost as much stilted, bland dialog as “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones” (without the cool light sabers…maybe HelloKitty! should have been a LightSaberToothed Tiger?). The editing was poor, as they tried to keep a bloody battle down to a PG-13 rating. And the actors simply were forgettable. In that regard I am surprised, because Roland had to know that charismatic actors can bring a lot to a hokey movie. Think Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum in “ID4”, Kurt Russell and James Spader in “Stargate”, Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger in “The Patriot” or Matthew Broderick and Hank Azaria in “Godzilla”…oops…nevermind.

But there is hope…hope that the Texas Two Step will continue to work. Next up for Roland is “2012”, another one of those “THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END!!!!” thrillers in the (exact) same vein as “The Day After Tomorrow”, and then a remake of “Fantastic Voyage”.

I have high hopes for both, but after what Roland did to my memory of Rachel Welch in a fur bikini from “1 Million B.C.” with this mess, I tremble to see what he might do to my memory of Rachel in a form revealing wet suit from the original “Fantastic Voyage”.

Probably put Paris Hilton in a deep sea diving suit.

For “10,000 B.C.”, could you see me giving this anything else than the Esteemed:

Spergeon Wynn – No Footballs, Ubersuckitude Personified