Perhaps I'm being too harsh; 10,000 B.C. is not an absol-utely horrible movie. It's actually a pretty decent(if somewhat typical) concept: a young warrior named D'Leh(Steven Strait) crosses the known world to snatch back his one true love, Evolet(Camilla Belle) and some other people in his tribe after they've been captured by foreigners sent to bring slave labor back to Egypt(or an Egypt-like place) to help build the pyra-mids. It's the standard warrior's journey, complete with trans-formation from boy to man for D'Leh, whose own father--once a proud warrior in charge of the White Spear, the tribe's very symbol of power and bravery--seemingly deserted the tribe, and unintentionally made D'Leh the shamed outcast.

     The film is full of prophesies of course, as all such films as this must be: there's prophecy about the lone warrior who will lead his people to prosperity, there's prophecy about the stranger who will be able to talk to the spear-tooth(saber tooth tiger...more on that in a second), and of course there's prophecy about the one destined to bring down the god-king of Egypt. Basically, there's prophecy up the ass.

     What there isn't is a whole lot of storytelling logic or histor-ical accuracy of any kind. Yes, this is a fantasy tale about a long-forgotten time in humanity's past. But it isn't so long-forgotten that people don't know that around 10,000 B.C. humans hadn't developed sophisticated language yet. Yes, the dialogue in the film(co-written by composer-cum-scribe Harald Kloser) is somewhat stilted in that fourth grade, "hey, let's make a play about cavemen, but we'll break up the sen-tences so it sounds primative" way...but there are far too many well structured, grammatically correct speeches, utter-ances and straightforward dialogue that gets in the way of one immersing themselves fully into the world Emmerich has designed.

     In that world, D'Leh and other members of his tribe come into contact with woolly mammoths, which actually died out about two thousand years before the setting of this story(somewhere in Africa), and so really shouldn't have been availble to heed the casting call. It might sound nit-picky, but while some saber-tooth tigers did still roam the land, D'Leh runs into the wrong breed that populated the African contin-ent at that time. Not only is the CGI for the tiger(by effects houses MPC and The Senate VFX) completely sub-par, bor-dering on cartoonish, but the cat looks like any other saber tooth that's ever been featured in prehistoric films! Emmerich has always prided himself on attempting to reset the bar on what can be done visually in a film. The bar was obviously left at home the day he approved that creature design.

     Of course, it's also completely laughable that during D'Leh's first encounter with the tiger, where both are stuck in a deep pit and face drowning as it fills with rain and he puts his own life at risk by daring to free the tiger rather than kill it, it seems to completely understand what he's saying and with a sniff to remember him by, doesn't kill him and instead leaves the pit! Not only that, but in a scene shortly afterward where D'Leh and his friend/mentor Tic'Tic(the always under-utilized Cliff Curtis from Sunshine and Live Free or Die Hard) have a tense faceoff with another band of tribesmen, the tiger actually shows up to demonstrate that it's watching over D'Leh!

     Because, y'know, according to history books, saber-tooth tigers always used to do that.

     I realize 10,000 B.C. is supposed to be a fantasy-adven-ture...but it shouldn't be an outright fairytale. Emmerich could have included virtually all the elements he wanted had he simply set his tale earlier in history(of course, "12,000 B.C." isn't as snappy a title as 10,000) and done two minutes worth of research on ancient human tribal behavior. The only things the film really has going for it are Curtis, Belle and Strait, who all turn in convincing performances, given the script they had to work with...although Strait is the weakest link in the chain, and the movie should hinge on a more solid actor.

     Although it's a rarity, if you're really in the mood for a good caveman epic--with more realism and a compelling story--try 1981's Quest For Fire. It's won awards worldwide, it's rated "R" with enough sex, blood, action and violence to satisfy anyone(unlike 10,000's bloodless PG-13, designed to get 'tweens in the seats), and it even goes down well with pop-corn.

     I mean, really...the next thing you know, Emmerich will be trying to convince us that Godzilla's not a guy in a rubber suit.