Do not eat me when I save your life!

10,000 BC

(2008)

Given all the disparate elements he throws at this, Roland Emmerich (perhaps the purest B-movie maker there is around at the moment) should have ended up with something more fun than it is. You've got cuddly sabre tooth tigers, mammoths labouring to help build the pyramids, what look like giant killer dodos and the builders themselves, who are (presumably) preening, degenerate Atlanteans.

It's all very po-faced, but at least that means lead actor Steven Strait (who is as charisma-free as his name suggests) doesn't learn to swing on vines from a bunch of monkeys. Most damning of all Camille Belle spends the entire movie fully clothed, something that no movie that owes its title to Raquel Welch's dinosaur pic should allow. Only poor old Cliff Curtis manages to add a bit of verve to the show.

That said, the visuals are frequently very impressive, and there's something almost admirable about Emmerich's evident belief in the utterly daft tale he's telling (story credit to him and the film's composer - not sure I've ever seen that before).

**1/2

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