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10,000 BC

Directed by Roland Emmerich

Written by Roland Emmerich and Harald Kloser

Starring Steven Strait, Camilla Belle

Classification: PG

Rating:

Known for movies of mighty scale and mini-brains, Roland Emmerich has repeatedly contemplated the destruction of the civilization (Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow). Now, he imagines civilization's beginnings in this lush and ludicrous tribal epic. The story is set among an improbable mountainous tribe of Caucasian/Rastafarian/native North American mammoth hunters, who resemble nightclubbing Calvin Klein models who speak in slightly accented formal English. So formal is the speech, in fact, it seems possible the “BC” in the title possibly refers to “before contractions.”

On the other hand, the press notes are rampant with apostrophes in the character's names: Ka'Ren, Tic'Tic, Luk'Ibu. The muscular hero with the wounded, puzzled gaze (the unknown Steven Strait, as a sort of charisma-free Colin Farrell) goes by the name D'Ley, which is pronounced Delay. No comment required.

Where in the world the tribe lives is unclear, although Lord of the Rings fans may note that it appears to be New Zealand. Apparently it's also within walking distance of a rain forest, the Sahara and ancient Egypt.

As we are told by the voice-over narration of Omar Sharif, the story concerns the legend of the Blue-Eyed One, an orphaned adolescent girl whom D'Ley's tribe picked up. The tribe's shaman, known as Old Mother (Mona Hammond), convulses and has a peculiarly Eurocentric-sounding vision in which she sees that the Blue-Eyed One, a.k.a. Evolet (Camilla Belle), is destined to marry the possessor of the White Spear and lead the tribe forward after a period of calamity. At this news, D'Ley's father promptly decides to leave the tribe, ostensibly to head off whatever calamity is afoot.

He leaves young D'Ley as a ridiculed outcast, and therefore, according to heroic conventions, he becomes the best candidate for tribal hero. Because of an accident involving a net, a spear and a self-destructive bull mammoth, D'Ley is erroneously hailed as a hero, but before he can correct his mistake, a gang of Middle Eastern-looking types attack on horseback. They capture many slaves, including Evolet, whom the glowering leader wants as his personal love slave, though fortunately he keeps postponing the consummating deed.

D'Ley gets a vigilante band together and, after Old Mother spits on everyone goodbye (maybe kisses hadn't been invented yet), they head off for many moons across mountains, rain forests and desert. The tribe travels through jungles, meeting fierce carnivorous giant ostriches and a benign sabre-toothed tiger. They also accumulate an ever-growing band of eccentrically costumed African warriors to join their anti-slavery movement.

The whole spear-carrying army gets lost in the “great sea of sand” until D'Ley shows his leadership skills by deciding that they should follow the “light that does not move” (the North Star). Soon, they find themselves coming upon an advanced Egyptian civilization, which is just finishing off the pyramids, about six or seven millennia ahead of schedule. The work is being supervised by sexually ambiguous cross-dressing priest-rulers, who cruelly abuse the slaves and the domesticated woolly mammoths.

Emmerich and co-writer Harold Kloser are clearly open to capricious historical invention, so it was a bit disappointing not to see a passing Mayan checking his sundial watch, or Noah sailing by waving hello from his arc's upper deck. (If you thought 300 was silly, think of 10,000 BC as 33.333 times sillier.) Instead, the script throws in a little more Lord of the Rings: Using the advice of a blind, pink, Gollum-like servant whom the slaves keep stowed under the floor, D'Ley formulates the great escape plan to free the slaves.

Not to give too much away, the climax involves a mammoth stampede, Evolet in bondage in a fetching and clingy green gown, and some inspired spear-throwing. All of this, of course, is rendered in the latest third millennium AD computer-generated imagery against a background of invented prehistoric architecture that Frank Gehry could admire.

Later, D'Ley and Evoleh smugly contemplate the one artifact they have saved from the civilization they have left in smouldering ruins: A handful of seed corn. Once again, no further comment required.