10,000 B.S.

Where’s Raquel Welch when you need her? I thought 10,000 B.C. was going to be a remake of the Ray Harryhausen/ Raquel Welch pot-boiler One Million Years BC , but no. If Raquel had been around, it might at least have had some camp charm, but this new flick, directed by Roland Emmerich of Independence Day fame, is deadly serious. Make that deadly boring.

The film opens in the mountains of somewhere (we’re not sure, but I think it’s supposed to be in Africa) as a small band of hunter-gatherers begins to face the future that their woolly-mammoth prey–and thus their life style–is dwindling. An old seer is having a vision, and a young girl named Evolet stumbles into the proceedings. She’s the survivor of another tribe that’s been slaughtered by “four-legged demons.” The old woman prophesies that whoever kills the first mammoth of the last hunt will–stay with me now–get the white spear, wed Evolet, and defeat the four-legged demons.

Of course, complications ensue. Evolet grows up in love with D’leh, who’s not exactly the bravest bulb in the tribe, but when the last hunt comes along (don’t ask me how they know it’s the last one), he manages to kill the mammoth, get the white spear and the girl, and then turn around and lose them because he lied, or something. When the four-legged demons show up (they turn out to be men on horseback), they haul off the able-bodied men and the comely women (including Evolet), and D’leh sets off to follow them and bring back his one true love. In the course of his quest he’ll discover he’s the subject of not one, not two, but three separate prophecies, which lend a layer of portentous B.S. to the entire production.

Despite the ponderous plot, 10,000 B.C. is very pretty to look at. Although it’s supposed to take place in Africa, the scenes of D’let’s tribe were filmed in the mountains of New Zealand, and you almost expect Frodo to wander up, they look so much like the locations of a certain other film. Emmerich and cinematographer Ueli Steiger compose their wide-screen shots to take full advantage of all that scenery, and the impressive CGI effects are well-integrated into the real-life settings. The acting, by Camilla Belle as Evolet and Steven Strait as D’leh is ok, but come on now: their parts, especially the standard damsel-in-distress turn of the lovely Bell, could have been played by anyone. (Thanks to Yair Raveh for pointing out Bell’s resemblance to Lindsey Lohan.)

The problem with 10,000 B.C. is quite simply that it’s as dull as dishwater. Neither the direction nor the editing can conjure up enough urgency to make the endless chase exciting. We watch as our heroes battle big giant birds, big giant sabre-tooth cats and big giant slave traders, who look suspiciously like Arab terrorists. The man who gave us The Day After Tomorrow wouldn’t pander, would he?

After awhile, it all just becomes one big blur. I actually dozed off as our heroes were camped outside the bad guys’ pyramid-building operation (that’s right, I said “pyramid-building operation”) for what seemed to be 10,000 years. By the time we get to Egypt, and the climactic set-piece on a partially-built pyramid, we really don’t care what happens any more. Perhaps it should have been titled “10,000 Yawns.”