Movie Reviews from (past) weekend 07Mar08

So it’s been a little bit since my last review but that’s because my life is a little crazy so . . . without further ado, let’s get to the reviewing. I saw 10,000 BC on 08MAR08 and it was . . . entertaining but cheesy. It was obvious to most of the theater patrons that cliché was the main plot drive. And 10,000 BC had every cliché available.

From the very beginning it had the plotline “loss of the father provides the son the destiny to be great”. It had “the lost beautiful girl and a sense of honor and duty drives the protagonist to get her back”, “combining forces against a common enemy”, it even had a cliché not seen very often, “hero saves beast, beast remembers the saving of it’s life and does not eat hero” along with the LAUGH OUT LOUD HILARIOUS LINE while our hero is saving the giant ferocious saber-toothed tiger. While saving the tiger he says, “I’m saving your life . . . do not eat me”. My head just about exploded! Of course he’s not going to eat you that would pretty much end the story right there.

The final planning stages and huge battle scene were enjoyable in a “fly on the wall” sorta way. Often times, with giant fight scenes, the director tries to put you inside battle, with at least one, angry enemy swinging right at the camera and one boulder rocketing right at the camera etc. This is not the normal fight scene. This battle is shot more from an “embedded reporter standpoint” as if you could report on it and you believe you won’t be injured by the implements that injure the warriors.

All in all, the movie was extremely cheesy but entertaining. Amidst all that cliché I found myself remembering and perhaps even reminiscing a little about why I enjoy watching movies and in that sense, the movie was successful. It allowed a couple hours of remembering all those clichés and watch those same clichés used in a proper setting to build upon themes and form a nice little story of hope, danger, love, loss, life, death and salvation. Finally, I will state the blatant. This is not Manchurian Candidate or Bridge Over the River Kwai, or Godfather or any of the other academy award winning serious movies. This is a movie you do to watch to be entertained. You enter the theater expecting cheesy dialog and hokie cues for the shameless kiss and the movies delivers on every single one of them.

Watch, Enjoy, and cringe at every single cliché

Stars rating:

Consider yourself warned about the cringing revelry of cliché