Tuesday, March 18, 2008

10,000 BC - don't scratch my soca!

Forget about it is like if you agree with someone, you know, like Raquel Welch is one great piece of ass, forget about it. But then, if you disagree, like A Lincoln is better than a Cadillac? Forget about it! you know?
Cinegeeks crack me up! Seriously, there are people on IMDB complaining that 10,000 BC contains factual errors. Ye gads, it's a Roland Emmerich big-budget studio action flick! It's not a National Geographic segment! This is the man who had Bill Pullman and Will Smith destroy invading aliens by uploading a virus into their improbably compatible computer network!

Thing is, if I see a movie like 10,000 BC, I don't expect it to be factually correct. In fact, if I'm going to have spend 2 hours watching actors in cheap wigs speaking gibberish I need A LOT of absurd craziness as compensation. I need good-looking people, scantily clad, running from bad-ass hairy mamaluks.

Tragically, 10,000 BC falls between the two stalls. It has great pretensions toward serious drama and gut-wrenching action but has neither the intelligence nor the sheer heart-busting adrenaline-rush chase scenes of APOCALYPTO. (And, frankly, if actors are going to have to utter such ridiculous dialogue - viz. the scene where our hero politely asks a sabre-tooth tiger not to eat him - I'd rather they did so in ancient Mayan or some other incomprehensible language.) More than once, I thought I saw the awesome Cliff Curtis smirking as he looked upon the ridiculous action before him.

Still, 10,000 BC isn't a complete write-off. First, the landscape photography from DP Ueli Steiger is truly beautiful to contemplate. Second, there's an unintentionally comedy performance from Mona "Auntie Susu" Hammond as Old Mother. That was enough to send me on a whimsical tour of old episodes of Desmond's whenever the action got too tedious to pay attention to.

10,000 BC is on global release.

1 comment:

  1. Factual inaccuracies do piss me off though. Like the Flintstones. People walking with Dinosaurs? Has noone heard of the K-T Boundary?

    It's giving children a poor impression of scientific fact.

    There. I said my piece.

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