It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about a really bad movie or a really bad meal, there comes a time when you can admit that you’ve had enough and need to give up.

While I fully expected “10,000 BC” to be a horrible film, I couldn’t have predicted the level of garbage that it is.

A big budget film that comes across like a high school production, “10,000 BC” rubbed me the wrong way from the first bit of dialogue. Instead of trying to follow the lead of such films as “Apocalpyto” and “The Passion of the Christ,” the creators of “10,000 BC” chose not to look into the possibility of re-creating an ancient language.

Maybe if Mel Gibson had directed it instead of Roland Emmerich (”Godzilla,” “The Day After Tomorrow”) it would’ve been more believable and not so lazy.

The characters speak in broken English which is more of a cross between “Me Tarzan/You Jane” dialogue and the vernacular of “Dude, Where’s My Car.”

If I wasn’t mistaken, I even detected a British accent in one of the characters, which seems a bit odd considering that the story is supposed to have taken place 12,000 years ago.

It’s the story of D’Leh, a ne’er-do-well who has a heavy crush on a gal named Evolet. He seems to have everything going his way when he accidentally kills a mammoth all by himself and the village proclaims him the next great hunter. In all actuality, his hand got caught in a net and the mammoth accidentally fell onto his spear, and although it still seems like he was pretty tough, he feels shame for misleading the clan.

Perhaps the Geico caveman could’ve saved this movie, but instead we’re given robotic and talentless portrayals. When the village in “Apocalpyto” gets raided and its surviving members kidnapped, you actually feel for them. When the same thing happens a few minutes into “10,000 BC,” you just hope the movie is close to being over.

Warlord, who takes a band of prisoners which includes Evolet, just prompts laughs when he speaks. He sounds like a long lost ancestor of Lurch from the “Addams Family.”

It’s hard to pinpoint the most ridiculous scene in the film, but you can’t go wrong talking about one in which D’Leh falls into a pit while chasing the ancient terrorists who have Evolet.

He wakes to find the pit filling with water during a heavy rain storm (again, something that happened in “Apacalypto”) and sees a giant CGI saber tooth tiger helplessly trapped under a log, essentially drowning. Holding his spear high, you could guess what D’Leh is going to do, but you’d probably be wrong. He turns into an ancient humanitarian and feels sorry for the animal and sets it free. It just reminded me of the tale of the mouse and the lion.

I can’t say that I saw the final 20 minutes of the movie the way most people have. There was nothing that could’ve happened to salvage it and I had already invested way too much time, so it was completed lightning fast with the aid of the fast forward button.

Even if you’re a big fan of special effects, you won’t want to waste your time.

“10,000 BC” isn’t just a travesty to movie lovers, but an insult to history in general.

“10,000 BC” 1 hour, 49 minutes. PG-13, intense action, violence.

Source: Great Falls Tribune