Despite Geico’s propaganda, cavemen did not know how to use soap. It’s a fact. Wikipedia it if you don’t believe me. This might be the one historical fact 10,000 B.C. gets right and it runs with it. The characters are dipped in shit. Ca-ca. Poop. It was high fashion back then. Just ask Omar Sharif.
Apparently if you save a saber tooth tiger from drowning, they’ll love you for life. Afterwards, they’ll do anything for you, like fall from the sky and protect you from a tribe of hostile African warriors. All of those rumors of saber tooth tigers being vicious carnivores are poppy-cock. Save one from drowning and find out. But if you let them drown, the noises they make are down-right side-splitting. It’s similar to when you fart underwater. So you can’t lose.
Like a mad scientist in the basement, Emmerich has been diddling with this technology since Stargate. And now he’s perfected it with 10,000 B.C.. He has managed to harness the power of light and give it mass. Enough mass to literally batter the brains out of an entire audience. The light pours from the film projector, reflects off the screen, and physically assaults all viewing the film. Watching 10,000 B.C. will cause brain trauma and perhaps even greasy bowels. No matter what, you are dumber after seeing it.
10,000 B.C. works hard to keep the identity of the Egyptian Pharaoh a secret—odd camera angles, strangely veiled sets and costumes, etc. Yet after our hero, Brick-brack or D-day or D’ley—whatever—skewers the main baddie with a tree branch, we get a glimpse of the man behind the curtain. And who is it? Why of course our favorite villain: Old Crusty White Man. Yes, apparently “The Man” had his boot on the throats of the oppressed since the dawn of Homo sapiens. The revealing of whitey as the tyrant is perhaps the most profound statement ever made in a Roland Emmerich film. Even more insightful than when Will Smith welcomed an extraterrestrial to Earth with a fist salad in Independence Day.
