An honest look at today's latest blockbusters, DVD rentals, and TV shows from two ordinary Janes

Sunday, March 23, 2008

I reviewed it! 10,000 B.C.




I actually experienced a bit of deja vu when I went the movie theater last night. It wasn't until my good friend Becky noted that we had just watched 10,000 B.C. the week before. That would explain everything. I was trying to erase that experience from my mind.

A little bit of catch up on what I'm watching:

Netflix:

The Office: Season 1 (UK), and the extra DVD (2 DVDs)

Gone Baby Gone

American Gangster (which I will watch with a friend this week)

Borrowing:

Dexter, Season 1 (off a co-worker)

So, that brings me to review the last two movies I watched, 10,000 B.C.(featuring a bunch of people I don't know about), and Shutter (starring Joshua Jackson, but also featuring David Denman, Roy from the US version of The Office). I'll review B.C. now, and Shutter, later.


10,000 B.C.

Oh my God.

Srsly. I took God's name in vain for this crapfest. It's been a week, and I think I about cleared that experience out of my system. I'm not sure if it was my complete and total lack of sleep (I was up about 24+ hours prior, I didn't plan that, I swear) that may have made me be extra-critical of the movie, so I put off this review for a week, only to realize that I had indeed watched the worst movie I had ever watched in a long, long time.

Anyway, the basic synopsis is about this young mammoth hunter D'Leh, and his love, Evolet. She came over as a young child when her village was destroyed by foreign marauders. The young D'Leh sees her and cute little butterflies fly about. When they get older, D'Leh struggles with parental shame issues and kills a big mammoth. Eventually their village gets invaded by the same guys that destroyed Evolet's village all those years ago. D'Leh vows to get her back.

Now here's the thing. There's the struggle, right? Man loses girl, man makes promise to get girl back. In my, albeit flawed, logic, doesn't that take the whole movie? Nah, the guy catches up to her in like 20 minutes...and then loses her again. I had dismissed the crappy teenage acting earlier in the movie, but this was really piling it on.

So, yeah. The guy is traveling all this way to save his girl and the village. He and his friends encounter other tribes, and discover that the enemy is pretty massive and has massive mammoths, and massive boats ("They float on water!" Oh noes!)...and massive pyramids. That was cool stuff right there.

That was the positive thing: The visual effects and cinematography. That, and the Dark Knight (Batman) trailer that aired earlier, were 2 positive things to be gleaned from this movie. The movie was pretty. The animals (saber-toothed tiger, mammoths, human eating birds) were pretty impressive....although the human eating birds...I wish they were something like raptorish. BIRDS? They should've kept them hidden, I started laughing when they revealed the grass monsters to be birds. Thanksgiving would have lasted ages then, haha.

Anyway. I won't bore you anymore. This movie is just...bad. Impressive as far as the effects go, but with the acting and dialogue--it was painful. Roland Emmerich (the director) should have focused much more on fights and more animals going wild. When the slaves started revolting and the mammoths stampeded I was thinking, "This is finally getting good!" Then it stalled even more. Nice little 300 ripoff there, though.

This is probably going on record as the worst rating I can remember giving. I would've walked out, but I was with a friend. And again, it was pretty. HoweverI wouldn't recommend this EVER. It wasn't worth half the $6.75 matinee fee I paid. I wouldn't buy this when it comes out on DVD or take it as a freebie, if only to use as a coaster. It's just that bad.

Anyway:

3/10 (and that's being nice)

Monday, March 17, 2008

10,000 BC

Don't-cha you wish your caveman was HOT like me!

Ah, well, it is late at night and I'm not sure if I can crank out a good review or not, but here it goes....

10,000 BC is a decent action movie. If you take it for what it is, then you'll enjoy it. It has romance (cheesy, but oh well), action, and nice cinematography.

In a nutshell, it's about a caveman whose girlfriend gets kidnapped along with other fellow tribe members by a large empire civilization across the other side of pangea. The caveman (forgot his name) forms an army with other neighboring tribes, whose people are kidnapped as well by the large empire civilization's people, and go to rescue his girlfriend. Along the way, they encounter some digital 3-D prehistoric creatures, other warriors, and really bad dialogue (oops, did I say that). I meant "personal struggles."

I won't reveal the ending, but you probably know what it is already. It's that obvious. My only other complaint is that they should have had more prehistoric animals in the movie. They only have about 3 types that they encounter, mammoths, some giant bird thing, and a sabertooth tiger. They really needed to throw in some more animals. Oh, and some more fight scenes. There were too little of those.

Other than that, I liked it. It's decent. It's not "Gone with the Wind," but a good popcorn movie. Enjoy!