In a sentenceEven with mammoths in it, 109 minutes can take a while
D’Leh (Steven Strait), Evolet (Camilla Belle) and Tic-Tic (Cliff Curtis) inhabit the prehistoric world of 10,000 BC, where people share the landscape with mammoths. Old Mother (Mona Hammond) and the Warlord (Affif Ben Badra) also feature in the story, narrated by Omar Sharif. Mammoth stampedes and pyramid construction form part of a fantasy adventure built around the legend of a hero. Human drama sits alongside computer-generated creatures in a version of the distant past shaped for action rather than historical reconstruction.
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Roland Emmerich gives the mammoths and pyramids more attention than the people. A few imposing sequences cannot rescue an adventure whose thin characters and slow storytelling make 109 minutes feel needlessly long.
Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 BC is a poor adventure with a few welcome bursts of spectacle. It wants the simplicity of an old-fashioned hero’s tale, with enormous creatures, danger and a sense that everything matters terribly. There is nothing wrong with that ambition, or with treating prehistory as a place for fantasy. The trouble is that the screenplay by Roland Emmerich and Harald Kloser gives us little reason to care about the people occupying all that space.
Steven Strait’s D’Leh and Camilla Belle’s Evolet are asked to sustain attention that the writing has not earned. Their characters have so little personality that it is difficult to become interested in them before the next set piece arrives. Cliff Curtis faces the same problem as Tic-Tic: the script provides a name and a function, but too few distinctive qualities. The cast are left to deliver weak dialogue with a seriousness that makes its shortcomings harder to ignore.
Omar Sharif supplies the narration, and the weight of the delivery becomes another obstacle. A voice with this much authority ought to help a legend along; here it makes the telling feel slower. We were bored by the solemn narration and the thinly drawn people, rather than amused by the film’s extravagance. An adventure this fanciful needs a lighter touch, especially when it pauses to tell us how much everything matters.
The mammoth stampedes do briefly provide some momentum. Ueli Steiger’s cinematography gives these passages a scale the human scenes struggle to match, and for a while there is enough movement to hold our attention. The computer-generated creatures do not always look solid enough to threaten anyone, which holds the excitement back even here. Still, these passages are a welcome break from the ponderous storytelling.
Jean-Vincent Puzos’s production design is more successful at supplying things worth looking at. The pyramid sequences have an imposing size, with buildings that give the adventure some of the grandeur it keeps announcing. The costumes by Renée April and Odile Dicks-Mireaux also show an inventiveness missing from much of the dialogue. There is care in the appearance of this world, and that deserves acknowledgement even when the film offers so little reason to stay in it.
Alexander Berner’s editing does not solve the uneven allocation of time: the story drags, then the action seems to finish before it has earned the wait. At 109 minutes, this should not feel like such a long journey between brief entertainments. Harald Kloser and Thomas Wander supply the music, but the score cannot generate much excitement around these characters. Too much of the work has been left to departments that cannot rewrite the script.
A simple adventure can survive all manner of absurdity if it gives us somebody worth following. This one’s lack of curiosity about its people matters more than any question of historical accuracy, and its solemnity makes it harder to enjoy the silliness. Unless mammoth stampedes are enough on their own, we would choose another adventure.
Most critics find 10,000 BC a dull adventure whose spectacle cannot compensate for weak storytelling. The recurring complaints are thin characters, sluggish pacing and a shortage of dramatic tension, with several reviews finding the action too brief or bloodless to help. Praise clusters around individual setpieces rather than performances: mammoth stampedes and imposing pyramid sequences offer some scale and excitement, even for critics who dislike the film.
The spread is wide, with the computer-generated creatures dividing opinion particularly sharply: some reviews admire their visual invention, while others find them cheap-looking and unconvincing. The Los Angeles Times and Empire offer the clearest dissent from the negative consensus, enjoying the old-fashioned adventure and accepting its silliness as part of the pleasure. Variety admires the effects but finds the drama timid and bland, illustrating why spectacle alone wins over so few critics.
Errigo finds the film spectacular and entertainingly silly, despite its self-important storytelling. She especially praises the mammoth stampedes and the old-fashioned adventure spectacle.
Read the full review →Turan finds the film silly and easy to mock, but ultimately admires its shameless, entertaining audacity. He praises its old-fashioned adventure spirit and spectacular mammoth imagery.
Read the full review →Honeycutt finds the film an entertaining action Western despite its campy moments and reliance on divine interventions. He praises its visual inventiveness, especially the costumes, settings and computer-generated creatures.
Read the full review →The review text is unavailable behind the access prompt, so its verdict cannot be established. No specific element can be identified as praised or criticized from the visible page.
Read the full review →The critic finds the adventure messy and its spectacle mindless. They single out the chintzy computer-generated creature effects for complaint.
Read the full review →Floyd considers the film a major disappointment. He complains that Omar Sharif’s narration is ponderous.
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The 7th Voyage of Sinbad · not reviewed yetA creature-led adventure with clear dangers, brisk storytelling and room for wonder.
One Million Years B.C. · not reviewed yetAnother cheerfully invented prehistory, with creatures worth waiting around to see.
Quest for Fire · not reviewed yetFor prehistoric survival that makes physical behaviour more important than grand speeches.
Princess MononokeFor enormous animals and human conflicts that deserve the scale around them.
Apocalypto · not reviewed yetA harsher pursuit through an ancient world, with far more violence and urgency.
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