Old Ass Reviews: 10,000 BC

My wife and I decided to rent some flicks Thanksgiving weekend, which finally gave me the chance to see 10,000 BC. I never caught it in the theaters because I didn't think it held much promise. The video store, however, was pretty devoid of good choices over the holidays, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Our story starts with some Ancient Eskimo-type/caveman-type guys living in a snow-covered valley in the mountains. The tribe lives off of hunting – especially mammoths. Eventually, some other peeps show up on horseback and kidnap pretty much everyone, including home dude’s love interest. So, our intrepid hero (D’Leh) heads after them with a few other hunters in tow.

These guys cross the mountain that no one has ever crossed, and end up in a jungle chased by Terror Birds. They push through that and end up in the grasslands. While there, our hero ends up in a tiger pit and happens to save a saber-toothed tiger. Later, he runs across a small village. The natives (ancient Bushmen, maybe?) are first agitated by the mighty Deee-Lite (or whatever his name is), but then they decide to follow him when the saber-tooth comes back to rescue him.

At this point, the flick is starting to sound like Beastmaster, but trust me ... it gets worse!

D-Man leads his ever growing army of Sub-Saharan tribes to the shores of the Nile. Apparently, the raiders on horseback have been taking slaves from everyone’s village and bringing them to Egypt. Our heroes just miss the boats, so of course they have to walk across the freaking Sahara to go after the slave boats. Eventually they make it, thanks to the fact that Heavy D is apparently the only guy who knows how the North Star works.

Thanks to his guidance, the army makes it to Egypt where … wait for it … the Egyptians are using FREAKING WOOLY MAMMOTHS TO BUILD GOLD-TOPPED PYRAMIDS!!! Eventually, there’s some random stupidity regarding a prophecy, and our hero manages to bring down the evil pharaoh using his Eskimo know-how and mammoth-hunting techniques (and I only wish I was making that up).

OK, there's a lot of things I can forgive with this anachronistic piece of floatsom. I can live with the gold-topped pyramids (even though such a load would be too heavy and impractical). Or the fact that Terror Birds died out well before humans made the scene. Or the fact that this movie happens well before the Pyramids were built (around 2540 BC). Or the fact that wooly mammoths are shown in Egypt, despite the fact that there’s NO WAY that happened! (Can you imagine wool-covered elephants surviving 5 minutes in the Sahara desert? Me neither!)

I’m willing to forgive all of this, if someone associated with this piece of crap could tell me: ON WHAT PLANET DOES THIS MOVIE TAKE PLACE? Just take a look at the following map of Africa:


OK, I see desert, grasslands, and jungle, but … where’s this freaking Himalaya-like mountain valley? Take a look at this crappy map where I've sketched out a possible route:


Working backwards, we finished up at the mouth of the Nile around Cairo. The army came from the South in a harrowing march across the desert. (OK, so far so good). Before that, they met the other tribes in the African grasslands. (Still with ya.) This of course was preceded by a trek through the dense jungle. (All good.) And right before that, we start our adventure in a high, snowy mountain valley with little to know sunlight or vegetation. (Well that seems - WHAT???)

There is no huge African mountain range. From what I can tell, maybe they started around Mt. Kilimanjaro, but that's just one peak sticking out of the savanna. I mean, look at that aerial view. Do you see any valleys or long mountain stretches? How hard is it to look at a map before you make a freaking movie?

While I was writing all this, I also thought of another problem with this movie: it’s racially condescending to an absurd level. The Egyptians have been taking thousands and thousands of these African tribal warriors as slaves for decades (maybe even centuries) and they're helpless to resist. As soon as one freaking white dude shows up from the magical Mt. Honky, however, they all unite to free their loved ones? Before Captain Caveman shows up with his incredible mammoth-hunting technology, these simple-minded Nubians couldn’t come up with the brilliant plan of THROW A SPEAR AT THE BAD GUY?

Obviously, this is a touchy subject. That's why I like to rely on my expert on race relations: Hooper X. What do you think, Hooper?

See that man right there?
He the Devil, understand? Never take your eyes off The Man!
Until next time,
The Jim