Product Description

The filmmaker who launched a UFO invasion in Independence Day and unleashed the forces of global warming in The Day After Tomorrow now unveils a new day of adventure, a time when mammoths shake the earth and mystical spirits shape human fates. Roland Emmerich directs 10,000 BC, the eye-filling tale of the first hero. That hero is young hunter D’Leh (Steven Strait), set out on a bold trek to rescue his kidnapped beloved (Camilla Belle) and fulfill his prophetic destiny. He’ll face an awesome saber-toothed tiger. Cross uncharted realms. Form an army. And uncover an advanced but corrupt Lost Civilization. There, he will lead a fight for liberation – and become the champion of the time when legend began.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4838 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2008-06-24
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Full Screen, NTSC, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 109 minutes

Features

• From Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, comes a awesome new adventure about a time when mammoths shook the earth and mystical spirits shaped human fates. This special-effects spectacle is an eye-filling tale of the first hero (Steven Strait), who sets out on a bold trek to rescue his kidnapped beloved (Camilla Belle) and to fulfill his prophetic destiny. Batt

Amazon.com
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 hieratically 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 dialogue 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 pre-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 moviemaking. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews

Anachronistic Festival
I can't believe that the guy who did Stargate and Independence Day could put out this loser. First, the story line is a ripoff of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. Then, the constant anachronisms make it irritating to watch. 10,000 BC and you have guys riding horses and carrying metal swords. The Bronze Age was still a few thousand years away. Pyramid building in the age of the sabertooth and wooly mammoth! Yikes! I assume the story was taking place on the African continent because of all the African tribes; the heroes had to cross what looked like the Sahara desert, but at 10,000 BC the Sahara was a great big grassland. On and on these anachronisms went, so many that it was impossible to maintain the suspension of disbelief that is necessary to get into a movie. I'm willing to give a director dramatic license in order to make a good story, but in this case, he really abused it.

Could Have Been So Much Better
First off, I did enjoy the movie. It wasn't fantastic by any stretch of the imagination, but it kept my attention. The special effects were well done (loved the sabretooth cat) and the costumes and score reflected the tone of the film. However, as many other reviewers have noted, the movie was almost plodding until the last 20 minutes and relied too heavily upon several convenient prophecies to propel the thin plot.

While I was hoping for something along the lines of The Scorpion King (Widescreen Collector's Edition), an action-packed sword and sandal flick, what I got was a movie where Clan of the Cave Bear meets Stargate (Ultimate Edition). We have a young girl with blue eyes taken in by a primitive tribe. They have a prophecy that she and one of their warriors will save their people. And until she is kidnapped by four legged demons (men on horses) all the viewer gets is the narrator talking and the men hunting. That's it. While "Clan" was based on a heavily researched book, with an engaging heroine and interesting historical details, "BC" is a hodgepodge of history and the narrator doesn't have anything vital to reveal. I agree with the reviewer who felt there should be more sex and violence befitting such a savage time. Normally, I don't care for gratuitous sex or violence but in this instance I heartily agree. Something needed to jump start this film. After the kidnapping, things didn't pick up much either. Our hero goes after her and we follow the three men tracking them for far too long. Along the way, our hero runs into a tribe of african people, who happily form an army for him since he fulfills one of their prophecies, and the climax is all set up. Finally, the film starts moving along, only viewers will feel like they are suddenly watching Stargate.

The hero arrives at a huge construction site by the river. Many thousands of slaves are building a pyramid for "The Almighty," a mysterious figure attended by robed men and young boys - just like Ra in Stargate. Even his building and chambers look like Ra's! And he'll face defeat from a primitive people to boot. And guess what? The Almighty has a prophecy that a Hunter with a mark will come to destroy him! Despite the total lack of originality, and yet another prophecy, the very predictable ending still managed to make the movie worth watching. A stampede of Mammoths, thousands of extras, lots of fighting, and a triumph of good over evil are always attention grabbing. And, I just love a happy ending.

Overall, this movie could have been so much better if they had cut out the boring overview of the tribe in the beginning in favor of more information about The Almighty. We never learn where he came from, how he took control, nothing. He was far more interesting a character than the hero, and he didn't get much screen time. Still, if you're looking for a movie to pass the time, this wasn't bad. But, I'd recommend renting it.

10 Things I Learned from 10,000 B.C.
Ten things I learned from 10,000 B.C. (spoilers beware!):

1) Nobody speaks in contractions.
2) Everybody is dirty.
3) Nobody speaks the same language except for one guy in Africa, and yet the translation of "Mammoths" is "Mannak."
4) The way to get a bull mammoth to stampede is to stand up in the middle of the herd and scream your head off.
5) Even isolated arctic tribes have tremendous racial diversity.
6) The pyramids were built either by space aliens or Atlanteans.
7) Egyptian pharaohs were white guys who spit a lot.
8) 10,000 B.C. had its own versions of velociraptors: giant angry chickens.
9) For some reason only white men can lead the more powerful and numerous African tribes.
10) Blue-eyed girls are hot.