I’ve actually managed to watch three DVDs in the last couple of weeks – not bad going for me! – and some capsule reviews are in order.

10,000BC

Since the adverts for Roland Emmerich’s latest blockbuster 2012 are all over the place, I allowed myself to fall into the trap of watching his most recent previous film. 10,000BC is basically about a pre-historic tribe in the snowy frozen lands, who are raided by slave traders. The hero sets off to rescue his beloved from their clutches.

And, err, that’s it. Simple quest film from there. And quest films can be pretty successful – a large part of Fellowship of the Rings is nothing more than a quest story, after all. But that’s because Lord of the Rings had far more interesting things going on below the surface, and interesting well-developed characters that you cared for.

10,000BC has neither. There is no story, and the characters are non-existent. The dialogue is so bad it’ll make you long for it being done Apocalypto style (but leave out the subtitles) and the cast are interchangeable. Any modicum of interest in the plot (such as: who is the “God” figure? What was the hero’s father up to when he disappeared? What’s the significance of “the mark”?) are squelched and dismissed almost as if the film is embarrassed to even hint at being anything more than a brainless action and FX blockbuster.

Emmerich clearly has a major Ridley Scott crush, but he can’t be bothered to stick to the historial detail of a Gladiator or Kingdom of Heaven. So he tries to create a quasi-mythic world-before-time, something Tolkien-esque in setting up mythos for the modern times; only Tolkien was incredibly intelligent and detailed in how he did this, and Emmerich doesn’t have a clue. So the film falls between two stools – too absurd for a historical epic, and too bland and realistic for a fantasy film like LOTR/Narnia. It’s like the historical epics that came at the tail end of the 60s after the fad had died – and which helped to kill it off completely.

If the film has any saving grace, it’s that it looks good: Emmerich really shoots the scenes quite beautifully and the cinematography at times almost bears comparison with Ridley’s. And the CGI effects are really quite excellent and don’t look nearly as plastic and fake as a lot of the current CGI crop tend to.

That just about lifts it out of one-star territory, but really it’s a close shave.

Rating: a barely tolerable * and a half stars out of 5

Star Trek – The Motion Picture

Or “the slow motion picture” as it’s been dubbed. I was feeling poorly when I watched this, and for me this film is rather like comfort food – chicken soup or crumble and custard. Basically it was the first film for the Star Trek franchise in 1979, ten years after the original series’ cancellation: the crew are reassembled to intercept a massive alien vessel heading to Earth. Only they can stop it, naturally.

The film makes the mistake of being overly reverential towards its source, with everything treated with solemn pretentiousness. Considering that the basis of the TV series was to be light, fun and action-orientated, this sudden re-purposing of it as some kind of grand po-faced epic along the lines of 2001 – A Space Odyssey couldn’t have been less appropriate. Fans (Trekkers) loved it purely because it brought the old crew back together again, but everyone else was left yearning for the next Star Wars film instead; fortunately the producers learned from this misstep and the next film was The Wrath of Khan which did a far better job of reviving the TV series’ spirit and joie de vivre.

Personally I’ve always really liked the first film too: it helps if you see it more like 2001 than the TV show. But there’s no doubt about how slow it is. The first half hour is full of sequences where four establishing shots are used when one would be almost too much. Considering that they’re meant to be racing the clock to stop an alien invader from reaching Earth, you’d think that some of that pace would have transferred to the film.

The FX get too much screen time, but at least they are very good effects – the journey through the alien vessel being comparable with the final sequences of 2001 and delivered by the top FX guys of the period. And the music (by the incomparable Jerry Goldsmith) is left to carry the film through long sequences of inactivity, and almost pulls it off. You’ll recognise the film’s main theme as the one that Star Trek – The Next Generation appropriated for use some years later, it’s that good.

The DVD I was watching was a new remastered version, and it looks wonderful – as good quality as any film just released in cinemas. Alas, they could only remaster the theatrical cut which means that many well-known sequences from TV and director’s edition versions are missing, which feels rather odd, but apparently these were never completed in high definition film and so can’t be remastered, which is a shame. Just occasionally the film looks as though someone’s gone overboard on the color rebalancing – the scenes on the Klingon bridge and on Vulcan look suspiciously neutral – but that’s a minor quibble to an overall excellent restoration.

The film’s faults are still there for all to see, but if you like the film then you’ll love the new version.

Rating: a well-restored *** out of 5.

Duplicity

This is essentially a con or heist film with a screwball romantic comedy plot involving Clive Owen and Julia Roberts as two spies collaborating (or competing?) in a plot to steal a company’s industrial secrets.

I’d expected this to be a light and fluffy film with little substance, but found I enjoyed it much more than that. Clearly influenced by the likes of Oceans 11 (or the TV series Hustle) this film puts a similar emphasis on style and fun over any serious substance. But if you liked the Ocean films of the classic double-crossing David Mamet puzzlers then there’s no reason why you won’t like this just as much.

This is a smart, stylish film with a fantastic visual sense to it – the title sequence punch-up between Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson is especially stunning, and the writer-director Tony Gilroy is fond of the split screen technique we haven’t seen since the 60s. He’s also supplied his stars with some crackling dialogue reminiscent of the type that Grant and Hepburn used to snap back and forth, and while Owen and Roberts don’t have quite that class they do pretty well with it nonetheless.

If there’s a complaint, it’s that the film is just too complex to be fun: there are wheels within wheels within wheels just to get to the start of the enigma wrapped in a puzzle. No one could figure this one out until very late in the day, and you could well prove to be exasperated by the whole affair. The best con/heist films are the ones that look really simple – you’re sure you know what’s going on right until the moment the film pulls the rug out from under your feet and shows you how you were conned from the very start and nothing was as you assumed. But instead, this film takes pains to remind you at every opportunity by flashbacks and dialogue that no one has a clue who is doing what to whom or who can be trusted, and that can leave you feeling a bit tired and frustrated rather than entertained.

But if you let it slide past you, accept that you have no idea what’s going on, and just drink in the intelligent script and gorgeous locations, then there’s certainly a rewarding payoff at the end, with unexpectedly deep characters for such an initially frothy-seeming piece of fluff.

Rating: a generous **** out of 5.

As soon as I started watching this movie, I wanted to stop.  Not because it was necessarily a bad movie, but more because i HATE movies that are about tribes and wars and so on and so forth.  They just bore me really.  And honestly…it was SUCH a played out story.  Just set in 10,000 BC.  Its about a young girl who is taken from her people and brought into this new tribe.  She has a “destiny” to be something special.  And of course a little boy falls in love with her right away.  Fast forward to a couple years later….theyre older and still in love.  People on horses (or 4 legged daemons) come and take her, and serveral others away.  Guy goes after girl.  Runs into other tribes along the way that have had their people taken too.  They all team up.  Go to the bad guys (who have been taking people and making them slaves to build a pyramid) and kill them and free all the people.  SNORE FEST.  Not original at all.  Kind of stupid.  But I watched the whole thing, even though I honestly wanted to just stop and go on to the next movie..

(2 out of 5 Liberties up)

Group BaLD released a pretty decent R5 rip of a very popular adventurous movie 10 000 BC literally few minutes ago. This is major improvement in the terms of quality, as the latest available version was still just a crappy cam. The movie itself isn’t such a bomb as expected, but it’s still a nice flick to watch. Check the samples and get ready to start your download!

Edit: 10.000.BC.R5.LiNE.DVDR-BaLD just pred.

From director Roland Emmerich (”Independence Day,” “The Day After Tomorrow”) comes a sweeping odyssey into a mythical age of prophesies and gods, when spirits rule the land and mighty mammoths shake the earth. In a remote mountain tribe, the young hunter D’Leh (Steven Strait) has found his heart’s passion – the beautiful Evolet (Camilla Belle). But when a band of mysterious warlords raid his village and kidnap Evolet, D’Leh leads a small group of hunters to pursue the warlords to the end of the world to save her.

*Warning this post contains movie spoilers*
I love movies. I love watching them and I love critiquing them. From an archaeological/historical standpoint 10,000 BC is just asking for it. It is a horrible inaccurate movie. Suppressing my inner archaeologist, the movie still sucks. My personal scale of movie watching ranges from ‘sell your friend’s, non vital, organs to see this movie’ [see ‘Iron Man’ trailer] to ‘ignore this movies existences, perhaps employ damnatio memoria (removing all traces of a person or event- I believe the Egyptians first used it, but I only remember the Roman equivalent) [DON’T see ‘One Million Years BC’]. 10,000BC falls towards the later perhaps in the ‘download illegally’ category, I don’t advocacy video piracy but this movie is so bad and has already made enough money to warrant not giving them anymore.

A favorite website of mine is the International Movie Database (www.imdb.com) and they were oh so nice enough to compile a list of historical goofs. Here is just a few.

1) Where the hell is this sole white tribe from? They are near the snowy ‘mountains’; a week’s walk away a rain forest and a short trek to the desert surrounding Egypt. What is this the land of mother natures menopause? The only mountains I know that are South of Egypt are in ancient ‘Nubia’, and we all know they are know for their abundance of white people. Seriously, why is there one group of honkies surrounded by all black tribes? What are they the ancestors of the ‘White trash clan’? I don’t think they would be sexually racist considering the size of their clan. I have never seen a comparably large pile of mammoth crap until I saw paintings of Aryan Jesus, it looked like he stepped off the cross and into Hitler’s mental image of a super race. Jesus was not white! He was a dark skinned! Get used to it!

2) Where did THIS come from? Here white travelers, enjoy some hot peppers and corn, oh and watch out for those ‘terror birds’. It is a real shame that all of these things were originally from Central/South America. Peppers and corn didn’t make their way to the ‘old world’ until the 16th Century. Is the lone white tribe secretly time traveling Portuguese/Spanish traders who suffer from amnesia?

3) What the TIME is it? The technical term is ‘anachronism’ which is something from a different period time placed in a historical setting. Classic movie reference/anachronism- the digital watch on the wrist of an extra in Ben-Hur. There are at least six of these ‘chrono-boo boos’ (including the chili peppers and corns).

Bad guy- “I have an idea. Lets get take slaves using our horses. Transport our slaves, in metal shackles, via sailboats up the Nile to our evil den. Why do this? So they can help out the mammoths who are building the pyramids.”

    Wow, where to begin. Lets just say apart from slavery, sadly, existing and people having stupid ideas none of that is historically accurate. The innovation of metal work, sailing and animal domestication coupled with the building of the pyramids all happened at a much later date. How far are off is the movie (all dates rounded)?  Metal working- 5,500BC, sailing- 4,000 BC, animal domestication- horses 6,000 and mammoths NEVER and building of the pyramids 2,630 BC. It also needs to be said that there is no archaeological evidence for slaves being employed to build the pyramids. Thats right, the book of Exodus is full of it. (Mark Lehner 2003- http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids.html )

Sexism, as well as historical ignorance, rears its ugly head too. While mammoths were never domesticated as pack animals and are now extinct, we can compare them to their closest surviving ancestor the elephant. Sometime during the movie one of the characters states “that one is the lead bull”. Ops, turns out elephants, and by association mammoths, are matriarchal, that’s right, big momma is in charge of the herd. Your sexism makes fictitious ‘Aryan-Jesus’ cry!

This rant could go on and on but anger clouds the mind and makes people stupid. If I keep ranting, I might actually become so dumb that just before my brain shuts down I will reverse my opinion about this movie. Instead, I will talk about why I hate movies like this.

Why does this movie invoke hatred in my soul?  It is part jealousy and part being witness to the corruption of everything I know to be true. I say jealousy because Hollywood can shape, and potentially educate, the public in a way archaeologists never will. As if being confused with a paleontologist on a daily basis wasn’t enough, now, I will have people asking me about the domesticated mammoth. As for the corruption, I will never look at the Sphinx, or domesticated crops the same way. In the movie the Sphinx is actually a saber-toothed tiger and the hero is given a bag of seeds (with corn kernels) to take back to ‘white mountain’ with the directions ‘plant these, they will feed your [honky, likely inbred] clan’. I have tried my hand at growing crops and its not easy, apart from making farmers look like lazy bastards, the film makes the social transition from hunter-gather to agricultural look like it happened over night. Well it didn’t; it took at least 500 years and the change was not a totally beneficial.

Perhaps what angers me the most is that I love movies and its crap films like this that push me away from that which I love.

For more information of the inaccuracies of the film, go to; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443649/goofs .

i was able to actually take a break from a busy schedule last weekend (march 8 and 9) and this weekend ( march 15 and 16) and took the opportunity to hoard some dvds and did a little pre-holy week movie marathon. just as i said in my previous entry, i was able to watch spiderwick chronicles and 10,000 BC on big screen but i was not able to write a review about it, specially 10,000 BC.

here are a couple of reasons why you should watch 10,000 BC.

1. if you are into apocalypto type of movies, then this movie is for you.
2. if you are into stephen strait, then this film is for you.
3. if you are into mammoths and saber tooth tigers, then this film is again for you.

summary

the story is set somewhere where there is snow all around you, north pole, the alps i don’t know and i don’t really care. a certain girl with blue eyes arrived in the village and the shaman of the tribe predicted that after the last hunt, the 4-legged monsters will come and destroy their village.

the girl became the “lady-in-waiting” of the shaman. the prophecy came true for after the last hunt, the 4-legged monsters came and destroyed the village, killed the hunters and enslaved the others.

then the quest for the girl began. then at the end of the movie, the girl was saved. much like one of the episodes of naruto when gaara died and elder chiyo had to give up her life so that gaara would live.

the shaman gave up her life so that the girl would live – minus the chakra of course.

but the movie is full of inconsistencies.

• i never imagined that english was the official language in the snowy boondocks of the north pole, the alps, etc in 10,000 BC. as i remember, the english language originated from the germanic settlers and roman troops. in fact, the old english was from the various dialects of the anglo-saxon kingdoms in england.
• because it is a travel story, a quest to save the damsel in distress, they have to move from the snowy boondocks to egypt bringing with them in their travel the language of their tribe. meeting the tribes in the african desert meant teaching them the english language creating the first black english speakers (sorry, i am not racist).
• if you travel from the cold areas of this planet going to egypt, you have to pass by a tundra before you reach the tropics but right after the cold regions, they reached the desert, then the tropics, then the desert again. correct me if i am wrong. as i remember it, from ice desert, you have to pass by a tundra, then a taiga, a temperate broadleaf, temperate steppe before you reach the subtropical rainforest. after the subtropical rainforest, you pass by a Mediterranean area, then the moonsoon forest before you reach the desert.
• if they are not from the ice desert, then perhaps they are from a tundra. if that is the case, they still skipped two areas defined in biomes.
• the movement was too fast. many things were not defined, others were unclear.

so, if you are planning to watch this movie, think again. i am not an expert movie critic. i am just sharing my POVs and mine will surely be different from yours.

10,000 BC is a 2008 American film set in the prehistoric and era directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Steven StraitCamilla Belle. The World Premiere of the movie was on February 10, 2008 at the CineStar theater in Munich’s Ice Cream Shop. The cinema release was on March 6, 2008.

Plot

The film follows D’Leh (Steven Strait), a young mammoth hunter of the Yagahl Tribe who is the son of a hunter who allegedly abandoned the village. It was also at that time that D’Leh witnessed the mysterious arrival of Evolet (Camilla Belle), a young girl with bright blue eyes who prompts a prophecy from the wise old woman of the tribe, Old Mother (Mona Hammond) of “four legged demons” (men on horses) coming to their land during the last Mammoth hunt to occur years later. D’Leh falls in love with Evolet and promises that she will always be in his heart.

Years later, the Yagahl tribe is expecting the arrival of a mammoth herd to help them survive the winter. According to Tic’Tic (Cliff Curtis), D’Leh’s trainer and a friend of D’Leh’s father, whoever kills the lead male of the herd will inherit the legendary White Spear of the North, and his wife of choice. When the mammoth herd arrives, the hunters try to capture the biggest one by dropping a net anchored by large boulders, but the mammoth manages to escape. D’Leh gets his hand caught in the net and is dragged by the mammoth. The struggle ends when the mammoth is pierced in the heart by D’Leh’s spear after he desperately places it in the cleft of a rock. Since nobody sees this other than Tic’Tic, D’Leh is assumed to be the leader and the winner of Evolet’s love. However, Tic’Tic is reluctant to recognize D’Leh. Being honest with the fact that he had tried to let go of the net and did not kill the mammoth, D’Leh returns the White Spear for the sake of honor.

During the night, a group of raiders come in and kidnap several Yagahl, including Evolet. The warlord leader takes a liking towards her. His main henchman, One Eye, believes that the girl is a witch who has seduced his master (his later actions hint that he is attracted to the girl as well). D’Leh decides to rescue Evolet and the rest of the Yagahl. Tic’Tic, Ka’Ren, and young Baku, whose mother was killed by One-Eye during the attack, join him. In pursuit of the raiders, they pass through a rainforest and are ambushed by a pack of Phorusrhacids. D’leh stuns one with a rock before another chases him into a bamboo patch. D’Leh narrowly avoids being eaten by impaling the bird through the head with a broken bamboo stalk. During a failed rescue attempt in the forest, Ka’Ren and Baku are captured by the raiders and Tic’Tic is injured. D’Leh falls into a pitfall trap where he finds a Saber-Toothed Cat trapped and drowning under a pile of wooden beams. Despite knowing he may be eaten, D’Leh saves the cat by setting it free. D’Leh and Tic’Tic continue through the desert, encountering the recently raided village of the Naku tribe. Just when the Naku are about to attack them, the Saber-Tooth Cat appears and D’Leh reluctantly confronts it. Recognizing D’Leh as the one who saved it earlier, the feline spares him and protects him and Tic’Tic from the tribe. The tribe acknowledges D’Leh as the fulfiller of the prophecy that a man who speaks to the Spear-Tooth would become savior. D’Leh also learns that his father had been there years before, from whom Nakudu, leader of the Naku had learned the Yagahl language. Meanwhile, one of the raiders whips Baku and Nakudu’s son, but Evolet begs the warlord to make him stop, which he does. The angry raider then says he will regret this.

Other tribes of the area, being convinced that the prophecy has been fulfilled, join them. D’Leh learns that Evolet and the others are being taken to the “Mountain of the gods”, home to the Lost Civilization, a pre-egyptian race, where they would be forced to build temples and pyramids for a mysterious god-like figure who is believed to have come from a “land that sank into the sea”. Determined to rescue Evolet and the rest of his tribesmen, D’Leh and Nakudu sneak into a slave camp to attempt to recruit the help of the countless slaves in a massive uprising. The slaves are unwilling to help, as they believe that no one can defeat the god-like figure except one: the one who bears “the mark.” D’Leh and Nakudu are discovered by some guards as they leave the slave camp, but Tic’Tic kills them before they are able to raise the alarm. Unfortunately, Tic’Tic is killed in the struggle and D’Leh reluctantly inherits the White Spear. Evolet is discovered to have scars on her hand forming “the mark” of the constellation of orion. As D’Leh and the tribes under his command start an uprising, the slaves join them. They approach the temple of the “god”, who threatens to kill Evolet. D’Leh chooses not to accept an offer to leave with Evolet alone and throws a spear at the tyrant “god”, impaling him and encouraging the mob to surge forward. Evolet is seized by the warlord of the raiders, but she frees herself by stabbing him with an arrow. She runs towards D’Leh when the dying warlord, out of spite and jealousy, shoots an arrow at Evolet from behind, killing her. However, she comes back to life to fulfill the prophecy of Old Mother, who revives her with her last breath. Nakudu, fulfilling the wishes of D’Leh’s father, gives him seeds for the Yagahl to cultivate. D’Leh and the rest of the Yagahl bid farewell to the Naku and return to their village. The film ends as D’Leh and Evolet observe the growth of the seedlings.

Cast

• Steven Strait as D’Leh, a mammoth hunter.
• Camilla Belle as Evolet, D’Leh’s love and the survivor of a different tribe that was killed by the “four legged demons”. While kidnapped, her hand was whipped, forming a scar in the shape of the “hunter”
• Cliff Curtis as Tic Tic, D’Leh’s mentor.
• Joel Virgel as Nakudu, leader of the Naku tribe.
• Affif Ben Badra as Warlord, leader of the “four legged demons” who falls in love with Evolet.
• Mo Zinal as Ka’Ren
• Nathanael Baring as Baku
• Mona Hammond as Old Mother, the Yagahl wise old woman.
• Marco Khan as One-Eye, Warlord’s main henchman.
• Reece Ritchie as Moha
• Joel Fry as Lu’kibu
• Kristian Beazley as D’Leh’s father.
• Junior Oliphant as Tudu, Nakudu’s son.
• Boubacar Badaine as Quina, leader of another tribe.
• Joe Vaz as Chief Of Guards
• Tim Barlow as the Pyramid God. The last of the three surviving Atlanteans, he is a tyrant who sought to enslave all people on earth. The Pyramid God covers his body to hide signs of his aging from his followers to have think of him as divine. He also fears the “hunter”, who is said to kill him.
• Omar Sharif as the Narrator
• Elbrus Ourtaev Stunt Man, also is horse man, who was taken by the bird.

Casting process

Emmerich opened casting sessions in late October 2005. In February 2006, Camilla Belle and Steven Strait were announced to star in the film, with Strait as the mammoth hunter and Belle as his love. Emmerich felt that casting well known actors would distract from the realistic feel of the prehistoric setting. “If like, Jake Gyllenhaal turned up in a movie like this, everybody would be, ‘What’s that?’”, he explained. Unknown casting also helped keep the film’s budget down.

Production

Director Roland Emmerich and composer Harald Kloser originally penned a script for 10,000 BC. When the project received the greenlight from Columbia Pictures, screenwriter John Orloff began work on a new draft of the original script. Columbia Pictures, under Sony Pictures Entertainment, dropped the project due to a busy release calendar, and Warner Bros. picked up the project in Sony’s vacancy. The script went through a second revision with Matthew Sand and a final revision with Robert Rodat. Emmerich rejected making the film in an ancient language (similar to The Passion of the Christ or Apocalypto), feeling it would not be as emotionally engaging.

Production began in spring 2006 in South Africa and Namibia. Location filming also took place in southern New Zealand and Thailand. Before shooting began, the production had spent eighteen months on research and development for the computer generated imagery. Two companies recreated prehistoric animals. To cut time (it was taking sixteen hours to render a single frame) 50% of the CGI models’ fur was removed, as “it turned out half the fur looked the same” to the director.

Box office performance

In its opening weekend, the film grossed $35.8 million in 3,410 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #1 at the box office — and grossing over $22 million more than the film in second place, College Road Trip. As of March 28, 2008, the film has grossed $80,045,351 in the domestically and $117,400,000 internationally, for an approximate worldwide total of $197,500,000 . A.O. Scott of the New York times has compared it to John Ford’s film The Searchers which it shares a similar story line with.

Snapshots:

Quien no sepa de que va este post, que revise la crítica cinematográfica de “10000 bc” aquí…

Si algo caracteriza a Roland Emmerich en la creación de sus películas es sin duda el espectáculo visual, en detrimento de la coherencia histórica, las leyes de la física o el simple sentido común. Vamos, un todo vale con tal de tener una escena espectacular con la que montar un trailer chulo lleno de ruido y efectos especiales para hacer caja.

En su última peli, “10.000 b.c”, no iba a ser menos, y junta Mamuts, Tigres Dientes de Sable, aves prehistóricas, egipcios…

Aunque en la película nunca se habla de la región en la que se desarrollan los hechos, por el aspecto y raza de las tribus, los escenarios en que discurren (montañas, desiertos…etc) y la cultura dominante de la zona con claras influencias egipcias, podemos teorizar que se trata de la región que hoy es Egipto, y alrededores.

Investigando un poquito uno se da cuenta de la cantidad de burradas que nos han intentado colar…

1.- Mamuts en África?

Si bien es cierto que alguna especies de mastodonte (que no mamut) estaban aun a punto de extinguirse en África en aquella época, lo que nos presenta la película es, claramente, un Mamut Lanudo (Mammuthus primigenius) algo hormonados (ningún Mamut fue nunca mucho mas grande que un elefante actual), que jamas habitaron África (Elefantes con esos pelos en el desierto?!) y que por supuesto, nunca fueron domesticados por el hombre, y menos para construir pirámides!!

2. Dientes de Sable en África?

Por aquellas geografías nunca hubo tigres Dientes de Sable. Si que hubo una subespecie al sur del continente, pero el felino de la película es un Smilodon, también algo hormonado (la subespecie de mayor tamaño no era mayor que un tigre actual), cuya extinción data del 8.000 a.C. Lastima que solo habitara el continente Americano…

Lo mas gracioso me pareció que los aborígenes de la película lo llamaban, sin despeinarse, “Dientes de Sable”… como si existieran los sables…

3.- Aves prehistóricas Gigantes en el 10.000 a.C.?

Este es, cronológicamente, el error mas bochornoso de la peli. El ave en cuestión, que parece una avestruz superdesarrollada (manías de este hombre por quererlo todo grande…) tiene todo el aspecto de un Gastornis, que se extinguió hace 30 millones de años. Habría sido cronológicamente menos esperpéntico que el protagonista le enviara un SMS a su novia para quedar con ella a echar unas partiditas a la Play…

4.- Pirámides egipcias en el 10.000 a.C.?

Suponiendo que fueses egipcios (todas las referencias arquitectónicas, de vestuario y demás así lo indican) la cultura dominante de la película, el hecho de que construyeran pirámides de esas dimensiones en aquella época es otro gran error. Las primeras Piramides egipcias se construyeron durante el tercer milenio a.C.. En concreto, la primera pirámide, la pirámide escalonada de Saqqara, solo tiene 8 metros de altura, bastante diferente a la de la película.

Pero es que podemos ir mas allá. El Antiguo Egipto como civilización comienza a aparecer en el 6.000 a.C., muy lejos aun del Egipto imperial y dinástico de las pirámides que todos conocemos. En el 10.000 a.C. solo había pequeños grupos de cazadores y pescadores a lo largo del Nilo.

5. Semillas de “otro mundo” y Caballos Domesticados en el 10.000 a.C.?

Una rápida pasada por la historia de la domesticacion nos enseña que el hombre no domesticó los caballos hasta mediados del cuarto milenio a.C. Las ultimas evidencias apuntan como mucho al año 5600 a.C. en alguna zona de Kazahistan.

Para colmo, en un momento de la película, el jefe de una tribu le entrega unas semillas al protagonista, para que alimente a su pueblo. Entre las semillas se distingue claramente maiz… una planta original de América y desconocida en el resto del mundo hasta ser introducida en Europa en el s.XVI

Ambientada en el año 10.000 a.C. cuenta la historia de D’Leh, un joven perteneciente a una tribu de cazadores de Mamuts que se ve obligado a perseguir a un grupo que ha apresado a todo su pueblo, y entre ellos, a la mujer que ama.

No se puede decir que Roland Emmerich sea un genio del séptimo arte, pero si que cada película que hace es una superproducción, que suele entretener y que, sobretodo, suele producir jugosos dividendos.

Ya lo hizo muchas veces antes con “Independence Day“, “Godzilla” o “El dia de Mañana“, y seamos sinceros, nunca demostró que supiese hacer nada mas… pero a quien le importa? El hecho es que crea taquillazos, él vive como un rey, y la gente va a ver sus películas en masa.

Y es que la mayoría de sus trabajos tienen un denominador común. El favor del director por el espectáculo visual en detrimento de todo lo demás.

En “10.000″ repite su propia fórmula para crear un conjunto de secuencias espectaculares en parajes de gran belleza hilvanadas con la excusa de una historia de amor épica, pero vacía y sosa, de un hombre prehistórico por una chica con una artificial mirada azul.

Mas alla de los Mamuts y los tigres de Dientes de Sable, todo carece de importancia. No importa el argumento, ni los personajes, ni los actores… todo queda aplastado por el mastodóntico pisotón de unos efectos especiales que sorprenden casi tanto como las bofetadas a la coherencia histórica del relato.

A años luz quedan trabajos como “En busca del Fuego” de Jean-Jacques Annaud, y uno se pregunta que pensarán Mel Gibson y Marcus Nispel, creadores de “Apocalypto” y “El Guia del Desfiladero” respectivamente, con los que comparte peculiares paralelismos.

Incluso regalando una resolución que ya habría querido Leonidas para si (y ya quisiera Emmerich que le saliera una película la mitad de buena que “300“) el resultado no deja de ser otra película mediocre que, a pesar de todo, entretiene durante dos horas al espectador pero que, al terminar, no arrancará mas que un triste “psss, no ha estado mal“, lo cual, en estos tiempos, tampoco es algo despreciable.

PD: respecto al rigor(pre)histórico… una solo post no me daba para decir todo lo que tengo que decir… aquí el resto

is a term used to describe the process whereby an audience tacitly agrees to provisionally suspend their judgment of improbable or impossible things in exchange for the promise of entertainment.

This movie tests the limits where such disbeliefs can be suspended and at the same time, withholding any semblance of entertainment. You have to marvel the director for trying to get away with that.

Also, the cast’s emoting is strained to say the least. But then again,you have to give them a bit of credit for trying. They’re trying to communicate in a language that’s unfamiliar to them. Last I check, prehistoric men needed a lot of work to learn English…