Movie - 10000BC Review

Rule no.1 while watching a movie with a big name director; never expect it be sensible and un-schmaltzy. The promos looked slick and the banners screamed “From the maker of ‘Independence Day’ and ‘Day after Tomorrow’ “. Day after Tomorrow was essentially a father and son movie with a load of aliens and creepy looking lizards added to the equation. The suddenly changing weather didn’t help either. DaT was set in the present, now lets turn the time back 12000 years, add some evil elements like prophecies, woolly mammoths, some voluptuously hungry jungle beasts, a band of Persians and the said father-son story and et viola! You have 10000 BC.

The story is about a tribe in the mountains whose Cheftain leaves the tribe in order to protect them and all that noble crap, but tells only one guy. The one who he intends to be next chief (Cliff Curtis, ever so old and grumpy) and while at it asks him to take care of his son. This leaves our hero in a calculated mess, with everybody calling his father a traitor. Meanwhile our hero checks out the lone girl who was found in the mountains. She’s supposed to be their savior, Oh my gosh, how thoughtful. She’s got blue eyes and in one moment of tranquility, our hero, still in his teens, confesses his love to her. I knew all along, even those pre-historic people were a horny bunch of homo-sapiens. But in all seriousness, the mountain scenes have been done very tastily and every wide-angle shot is worthy of a poster.

Then our rosy couple grow up to be handsome and beautiful, just as they should be. D’Leh (Steven Strait, the only one with some promise) is a contender for the White Spear and wins it too (the mammoths here look amazing). All of a sudden, amidst the goody goody, the Persians raze the little settlement leaving the old Mother (Mona Hammond) and some more hidden idiots behind. Old Mother can’t do anything but mumble random, spooky sounding nonsense, in any case. They take our blue-eyed-chick Evolet(Camilla Belle), too. Oh no! For a happy ending, the hero and heroine must get together, do their stuff and have lots of kids. What now?

Our hero D’Leh, will follow the bad guys to the other end of the world and bash them into pulp, how predictable. On the way, he picks up some more tribes and forms a massive army. He also bumps into some really wild animals, a sabre-toothed tiger and some more savage beasts that look amazingly real and scary too. Since the movie has little by way of a story, the cinematography is all crafted to visually assault you and terrorize you out of your seats. I admit, I jumped in my seat more than twice. Hey I’m still a kid, I’m licensed to jump when some over sized carnivorous vulture takes a violent jibe on the screen.

Then they reach their destination, in Egypt where Pyramids are being built. Here our Evolet is the cause of envy amongst two Persians and they keep screwing each other for her sake. See? Blue-eyed chicks posed a problem to global peace even in 10000BC. In the meanwhile our hero re-organizes all the slaves, causes pandemonium, courtesy, their mammoth terrifying skills and rescues Evolet.I found the last part, oh so Bollywood-like. Our Evolet is struck by a bow and in one moment of inspiration, D’Leh looks at a mammoth, the old Mother bleeds from her nose (hypothermia?) and Evolet is back from the dead. I absolutely cringed at this portion and wondered why every story has to have a happy-happy ending. But then I am sure everybody saw this coming. All in all, the movie is watchable just for the graphics and the amazing cinematography. The acting on average is erm.. well average! Yeah thats the word!

SatishSays dot Com rating 6/10

Tags: historic, movie review, thriller

Vantage Point Review

President assassination stories make for interesting viewing, thats what the movie-maker probably thought. They sure as hell cant make for good bedtime stories, simply because the movie is PG 13 and kiddies just love violence. Bang, bang, kapow, bang, you’re toast, yummy!

The movie plot instantly reminds you of an old movie by the name of ‘The Day of the Jackal’ which starred Edward Fox which dealt with the assassination of the then President, Charles de Gaulle. There are differences of course. The 1973 movie was flawless and this one’s quite the opposite.

 

The problem is the storyline. It revolves only around the assassination and its as if the writer frantically looks at as many factors as possible to overwhelm and confuse the living daylights out of the audience. As the tag line suggests, the story unfolds through the eyes of 8 people, so you have just as many flashbacks. And I just hate god-damned flashbacks.

At some points, I actually found myself groaning “Have mercy”, “for heavens’ sake” and other such sympathy garnering lines to what I thought would be an edge-of-the-seat thriller. The plot at times feels amazingly predictable and loosens off at many places after the rather tight start.

 

But for the worst part, the movie seems well-researched because the portrayal of the security protocol was pretty authentic. The performances by Dennis Quaid (Thomas Barnes, secret service chief to the President of US) and Eduardo Noriega (Enrique, undercover Spanish cop) are pretty moving and so is the action. Other performances are not really worth a mention and are average.

It should do well to satisfy pyrotechnic loving action fans because there are loads of explosions (and you can see them over and over again), some brilliantly shot car-chase sequences and those aforementioned ‘bang-bang-you’re toast!’ scenes. I almost jumped out of my seat once or twice, the direction is that good.

Verdict :- The plot isn’t half as good as the execution and it feels rather pointless and draggy at times. But nevertheless, it might just make for a good one time watch.

SatishSays dot Com rating 5/10

A big Thank You to JAM magazine for sending me for the press preview. You rock!

Tags: movie review, thriller