“10,000 B. C." (Warner Brothers)
Where Is Raquel Welch When You Need Her
In 1966 there was a movie released titled “One Million Years B. C.” It featured a lollapalooza named Raquel Welch. Now in 2008 we get a movie titled “10,000 B. C.” All I can say is where is Raquel Welch when you need her This new film is long on saber toothed tigers but short on anyone with sex appeal. This is a movie in which everybody needs a bath and matted dreadlocks are the fashion statement of the day.
The film concerns the adventures and misadventures of a young man named D’Leh (Steven Strait). He is in love with a woman named Evolet (Camilla Belle). She is special because she has blue eyes where everyone else has brown. Their love is true because the narrator of the film, Omar Shariff, tells us it is.
One day a barbarian horde swoops into the village of D’Leh and takes Evolet and others away. D’Leh swears he will find Evolet and bring her back. He sets off on a trek that takes him to Egypt, or at least it looks like Egypt as they are building a pyramid there. It is here that D’Leh asks his friends and acquaintances he has met while on his journey to help him battle these people and rescue Evolet.
This skinny plot is what they hang the entire movie on, and it gets tedious and boring. The only fun of the film involves the huge tiger and the wooly mammoths that D’Leh encounters. They appear to be computer generated but they are still impressive.
The actors are not impressive. Neither Strait nor Belle makes much of an impression. It is amazing that the filmmakers thought they could hire a group of unknowns and make people want to see the film. On TV this may work but not in the movies.
The film is PG-13 for violence.
Taking a look back in history is fun sometimes, but these people seem to have much too modern things for the time period. If they had fire, the wheel, boats, spears, agricultural knowledge, etc what did they develop in the next ten thousand years
“10,00 B. C.” is a puny story filled with characters played by a bunch of unknowns. It just doesn’t work – except for the special effects. They are pretty good.
I scored “10,000 B. C.” a Welch-less 4 out of 10.
