Ignoble savages

I know what you’re thinking: “Say, it’s about time we got a movie from the guy who did Independence Day about woolly mammoths and prehistoric humans with dreadlocks! And, if we are lucky enough to be blessed with such a thing, those dreadlocked humans will speak near-perfect English adorned by something akin to German accents!”

That’s just what you get with 10,000 B.C., honestly, one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Bloated, boring, moronic, derivative and flat out ridiculous, it’s amazing this thing got greenlit. Even more amazing, people flocked to see it on opening weekend.

Steven Strait plays D’Leh, a Chippendale’s caveman with eyes for Evolet, played by the hot girl from When a Stranger Calls (Camilla Belle). D’Leh, a captivating name if there ever was one, wants to be the one who kills the mammoth because then he’d get the white spear and Evolet, and those are good enough reasons to kill an endangered species. He kills the mammoth but pulls the old Anthony Hopkins in The Edge killing-of-a-big-animal routine (A: Prop spear in rocks, B: Make animal run after you, C: Animal falls on spear and then falls on you).

He deems his method of mammoth murdering cowardice for some reason or another that I really didn’t discern (or care about, for that matter). He gives back the spear and the hot babysitter girl and starts acting all sullen. Evolet gets kidnapped by a marauding crew resembling Vikings, although they don’t wear the funny hats with horns. They do have the whole raping and pillaging routine going, though. D’Leh takes off after them to regain his dignity, get the girl and eventually burn him some pyramids.

For starters, I have no idea where this film takes place. It starts off in snow, the prehistoric dudes go for a walk and then winds up in the desert, and then there are pyramids everywhere. Egypt? Canada? Mexico? Jersey? I have no damn idea.

And let’s get back to the whole speaking English thing. D’Leh and his crew speak English, then they run into an African-looking tribe that speaks its own tongue (Emmerich is kind enough to provide subtitles). Somebody in the African tribe also knows English and acts as a translator. So let me get this straight: Ancient civilizations had foreign exchange programs where dudes could go learn other languages in exchange for some face paint and bone jewelry? D’Leh’s dad went to live with the African tribe at some point, so perhaps that explains the whole convenient translator thing.

The CGI mammoths look relatively cool but not that much better than the one Ray Romano portrayed in Ice Age. Most hilarious is the depiction of a giant saber-toothed tiger that D’Leh rescues from drowning. The tiger spares him and later saves his ass when a tribe is prepared to filet him. Yes, this is a friendly saber-toothed tiger movie, and the beast isn’t voiced by Denis Leary.

There are other things that make this movie stupid: A character named Old Mother, who looks like the creepy Rastafarian from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Old Mother dances around in her tent, where the sunlight breaks through in a truly artistic manner, and prophesizes shit. She also spits on everybody before they take long journeys, an act I consider rude.

There’s the young hunter wannabe who looks like that scat-singing dickhead Justin from American Idol, and some cloaked dude who calls himself the Pyramid God who is very susceptible to spears. There’s also the great warrior Tic Tic (played by Cliff Curtis), and I couldn’t help but think of Tic Tacs, the refreshing little breath mints, whenever anybody said his name.

So, if you plunk down the dough for this one, you will find yourself staring down one of the most moronic movies ever made. Just a few minutes into the movie, a little boy at the screening proclaimed “I don’t want to watch this movie, Mommy!”

Well said, little man. Well said.