In the beginning, there was 10,000 B.C. ...

... and the world saw it was not so good

The Screening Room
Specially written for What's Up



If anything proves the point that looks can be deceiving, “10,000 B.C.” is it.

Down to its name the movie begs to be measured in epic proportions, but the only epic thing about the flick is its green-screen action time, which after nearly two hours becomes a mind-numbing parade of digital effects as exciting as a blase blind date.

The celluloid snoozefest follows D’Leh (an easy-on-the-eyes Steven Strait who’s valiant thespian efforts prove ultimately futile) as he journeys far from home to save the woman he loves and keep his village from being extinguished by civilizations bigger than their own.

Though D’Leh pulls off what could be described as the biggest cinematic slave coup depicted since “Ben Hur,” his story fails to register, and the writing at times puts a cringe on your face like you’ve just discovered your beard for the evening is still spinning REO Speedwagon in his teal Geo Prism.

By far the most redeeming parts of this epic flub are the green-screen creations, CGI works of animalistic art that bring the only whiffs of excitement and surprise to the table. As D’Leh tracks the tribe of slave drivers who have kidnapped his beloved Evolet (Camilla Belle), he faces breathtaking wooly mammoths, a saber-toothed tiger and some startling voracious ostriches that would have been better spent appearing on the island of ABC’s “Lost.” But alas, all of these big screen blockades are slain with the muscly thrust of a spear, and the Apocalypto-wannabe blunder reverts back to its predictably weary ways.

Belle, who’s sharpened her acting chops in the past against greats like Daniel Day-Lewis (“The Ballad of Jack and Rose”), is potential talent wasted, always being jostled by one pair of burly, half-clothed brutes or another, and the script has dialogue even Samuel L. Jackson would reject.

At one point D’Leh leans to his damsel in primordial distress and says “I’ll never leave you again,” only to call out to her not three minutes later “I will come back for you, I promise.”

No wonder they faced extinction.

D’Leh’s entire journey leads to a final battle of seemingly fantastic proportions, until it is stopped so short the audience is sent reeling.

Directed by Roland Emmerich (“The Day After Tomorrow,” “Independence Day”), and written by Emmerich and Harald Kloser, “10,000 B.C.” palpably attempts to breathe life into a people now vanquished, and instead falls colossally flat.

But the point this failing picture makes is certainly far from moot.

Like even the most buzzed-about silver screen depictions of the greatest of civilizations — or a really bad date — there are just some moments in our history we should never resurrect.