10,000 BC is a 2008 American action-adventure film directed by Roland Emmerich and co-written by Emmerich and Harald Kloser. The cast includes Steven Strait, Camilla Belle, and Cliff Curtis. The film depicts the journey of a young mammoth hunter from a prehistoric tribe who embarks on an odyssey to rescue his captured love.
Plot
In the Ural Mountains, a hunter-gatherer tribe called the Yagahl survives by hunting woolly mammoths. A young blue-eyed girl named Evolet, the lone survivor of an attack by "four-legged demons" (warriors on horseback), is brought to the tribe. The shaman Old Mother prophesies that Evolet will be betrothed to the champion of the tribe's final hunt, and the pair will lead the Yagahl into a new way of life. Years later, the adult D'Leh (Strait) accidentally kills a mammoth, winning the White Spear and Evolet. Horse-mounted riders attack the camp, kidnap Evolet, and enslave the able-bodied. D'Leh, along with Tic'Tic (Curtis), Ka'Ren, and a young boy named Baku, sets out to rescue them. Their journey leads them to an advanced civilization ruled by a god-king called "The Almighty," who is using enslaved tribesmen and mammoths to build pyramids. D'Leh leads a rebellion, kills the Almighty, and Evolet is resurrected through the shaman's sacrifice.
Cast
- Steven Strait as D'Leh, a mammoth hunter
- Camilla Belle as Evolet, D'Leh's wife
- Cliff Curtis as Tic'Tic, D'Leh's mentor and friend
- Joel Virgel as Nakudu, leader of the Naku tribe
- Affif Ben Badra as the Warlord
- Mo Zinal as Ka'Ren
- Nathanael Baring as Baku
- Mona Hammond as Old Mother, the Neanderthal shaman
- Tim Barlow as The Almighty
- Omar Sharif as the Narrator
Production
Roland Emmerich opened casting sessions in late October 2005. Camilla Belle and Steven Strait were announced in February 2006. Emmerich deliberately cast relatively unknown actors to maintain a realistic feel and keep the budget down. The film was shot over 102 days in South Africa, Namibia, New Zealand, and Thailand. Two companies handled the computer-generated imagery, with 50% of the CGI models' fur removed to reduce rendering time. Dialect coach Brendan Gunn created approximately half a dozen languages for the film, incorporating elements of local African languages such as Oshiwambo.
Release and Reception
The film premiered on February 10, 2008, at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin and was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on March 7, 2008. It grossed approximately $269.8 million worldwide against a $105 million budget, making it the first film of 2008 to surpass $200 million. Critical reception was largely negative. On Rotten Tomatoes, 10% of 147 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.4/10. Metacritic assigned a score of 34 out of 100, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C."
Historical Accuracy
The film has been widely criticized for numerous anachronisms and historical inaccuracies. While woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats may have existed around 10,000 B.C., both were nearing extinction. The depiction of mammoth herds led by a male is inconsistent with modern elephant behavior, where herds are led by older females. The inclusion of advanced civilizations, pyramid-like monuments, written language, metal tools, and sextants is highly inaccurate, as such developments did not emerge until approximately 3,000 B.C.
