HTF BLU-RAY REVIEW: 10,000 BC

Michael Osadciw · 06-21-2008, 04:45 PM

Blu-ray Disc Review

10,000 BC

Distributor: Warner Bros.
Original Release: 2008
Length: 109 min
Genre: Action/Adventure
Film Rating: PG-13

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Colour/B&W: Colour

BD Specifications:
Resolution: 1080/24p
Video Codec: ?
Disc Size: BD-25?

Audio:

English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround

English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround (default)

Français (Quebec) Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround

Español Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround

Subtitles: English, Français, Español

Release Date: June 24, 2008.

Film Rating: /

Starring: Steven Strait (D’Leh), Camilla Belle (Evolet), Cliff Curtis (Tic’Tic), Joel Virgel (Nakudu), Ben Badra (Warlord)

Written by: Roland Emmerich & Harold Kloser
Directed by: Roland Emmerich

It takes a hero to change the world.

What a crappy week of movie watching. After being bogged down with work in my full-time career, a bit of unwinding in front of the big screen was a welcomed thought. I had two “big” releases arrive at my doorstep and I was eager to review both and be entertained. Well, the latter didn’t happen. In fact, in both cases, both films gave me the dreaded fatigue and along with it, head-bobbing while trying to keep my heavy head awake. Nothing, not even Shark Repellent sprayed in my eyes or a sabre-toothed (or should I say spear-tooth) tiger pulling at my leg could save me from these movies. The joke was on me, it seems.

10,000 BC was one of those movies. Written and directed by the Roland Emmerich, the director who brought us awful movies like Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, as well as those pulling in mixed reviews such as Stargate, Godzilla and The Patriot (2000). Emmerich seems to be a bit of a king for these blockbuster action films, but again, I feel he falls very short in 10,000 BC.

I’ll cite a poor high school-like written script, lack of character development (is it me, or do they look like they should all be in heavy-rock bands?) and lack of uniqueness to the overall story; I think I’ve seen this movie 10 000 times in one form or another. This time it takes place 12 000 years ago. I’m an anthropology major and I just couldn’t get past the many cultural inaccuracies displayed in this film of people during that time. Way to advanced. Research should have been done and followed. Sorry. The whole movie was a bummer as it tried to ride on the backs of action sequences. Beyond that, what else is there?

I’ll leave the synopsis of the film to fellow HTF Reviewer Ken McAlinden, who’s review for the SD DVD can be found here. Following are my comments regarding the HD video and audio presentation.

HTF Reviewer Ken McAlinden writes: 10,000 BC tells the story of D'Leh (Strait), a member of the Yagahl, a tribe of peaceful hunters who's world is turned upside down when they are attacked by a fierce warlord (Badra) and his clan of mounted warriors. The mounted warriors kill many of the Yagahl, and kidnap several of them to be sold into slavery. Among the kidnapped is Evolet (Belle), the unusually blue-eyed girl who D'Leh has loved since they were children when she was brought into the Yagahl as an orphaned foundling by their spiritual leader, Old Mother (Hammond). D'Leh sets out with skilled hunter Tic'Tic (Curtis), fellow tribesman Ka'Ren (Zainal), and tagalong young boy Baku (Baring) on an epic journey fraught with peril to rescue his people and recover his love.

Given his track record, it will come as no surprise that Roland Emmerich has delivered yet another cinematic slice of big dumb spectacle. A debate on the scientific accuracy of how humanity circa 10,000 BC is portrayed is not even worth starting. The filmmakers clearly did not care and believed that the audience should not either. Viewers are best off ignoring the film's title and looking at it as a story of primitive cultures from some kind of alternate universe.

Plot-wise, the film borrows heavily from literary and cinematic epics of the past and at times seems like it was developed by going straight from a Joseph Campbell comparative mythology checklist into a final screenplay. It really throws in everything but the kitchen sink in terms of putting the hero through an epic quest, escalating difficult physical and mental tests, parental issues, and what have you. These elements are not necessarily rendered artfully, elegantly, or even sensibly at times, but the film tries to smooth all of that over by maintaining a breakneck pace and emphasizing spectacle, frequently of the computer generated variety. To its credit, it succeeds fitfully if one can manage to keep one's brain in park (or at least a very low gear) for the film's duration.

The film has some truly impressive special effects, but suffers in much the way many of the Harry Potter films do by employing different effects houses with different styles and abilities. As a result, the CGI mammoth's actually look quite impressive, the giant predatory birds, done with a combination of practical and digital effects, are similarly well rendered, but the sabre tooth tiger looks like it does not belong in the same frame with everything else around it. For the action set-pieces at the film's end, the digital extras and set extensions are very well integrated into the live action photography.

The producers were probably hoping to achieve 300-like success (or at least avoid taking a Troy-like financial bath) by not shelling out big salaries for top dollar actors in their action spectacle. The relatively unknown cast (short of off-screen narrator Omar Sharif) occasionally loses their characters under layers of make-up and unusual accents, but their job is mostly to look good in quasi-primitive clothing and keep the plot rolling, which they do in a journeyman-like fashion. While there are no breakout star-making performances along the lines of Gerard Butler in 300, nobody particularly embarrasses themselves either, with the possible exception of Ben Badra near the end. I had the distinct impression that he was being coached by the director to ham it up at that point, so I will give him a pass.

VIDEO QUALITY: 5/5

I found the video very impressive with this release. When viewing the vast open lands of many natural environments (this film was shot in many unique locations) I didn’t notice anything unnatural about the image – all seemed spot free of digital and unnatural artefacts. Resolution looked great as I could see individual strands of hair with distance and depth between them. Details on rocks, fauna, and flora all seem very good whether real or CGI. CGI is nicely incorporated, backgrounds look nicely inserted but some CGI movement looks bad – many times at the end of the film the motion of large objects falling isn’t smooth. When seeing the sabre-tooth tiger, I couldn’t help to think I was watching a live alternate version of the animated film Ice Age. Shadow detail and image contrast is pleasing and colours seem to pop out a bit more than other films. It seems the colours of the sky were enriched by the powers of computer imagery, but that’s fine because it works for this film. Very pleasing, overall.

AUDIO QUALITY: 4/5

The Dolby TrueHD encoding of this 5.1 soundtrack brings a lossless presentation of the 5.1 mixdown. I found the audio pleasing in that is seemed pleasantly rolled off and smooth at the top end of the audio. I didn’t find any harshness to the audio mix, but I did think the dialogue was poorly integrated. Not only was it too forward, but it sounded too dry and not integrated with the environment on screen. ADR at play here – and many times not sync’d well with lips on screen. What a disappointment. On a better note, the front soundstage is wide with sound effects as well as the score from Harold Kloswer and Thomas Wander. Despite the clarity of the score, the score itself I found to be too gentle and childish and it didn’t help better the film in any way. Bass and LFE info is plenty; the film had the room shaking many times with deep pulses of bass. I just found the heavy thumping of the woolly mammoths a bit too much. I think they’d be a bit more gentle when walking. Surround activity, on the other hand, was not as impressive as I expected it to be. The soundtrack felt a bit compressed in terms of dynamics but without strain or grittiness in the audio image. The volume level of soundtrack seemed several dB too low for my tastes in certain scenes, although there was the occasional effective directional cue. The volume level of the whole soundtrack is also several dB lower than what I’m used to hearing with Fox’s DTS-HDMA encodings or pure PCM audio from other studios. The default audio option is lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 so be sure to select the lossless encode if you have that capability.

TACTILE FUN!! /
TACTILE TRANSDUCER ON/ON?: OFF

The thumping of the woolly mammoths and terror birds made the film more engaging as it added plenty of discrete LFE information. Combined with a bass shaker or tactile transducer hooked into the LFE channel, the dimension of fun increases with this film. When those scenes are over, you suddenly realize what movie you are watching…

SPECIAL FEATURES: 1.5/5

It appears a few special features made it to the Blu-ray disc and didn’t make it to the SD-DVD. What is shared between both discs is the ”exciting” alternate ending and the ten ”awesome” deleted scenes (about 12 minutes total – and neither are exciting or awesome). They are presented in SD 16:9 enhanced video with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio. Scenes with digital effects are incompletely rendered. The deleted scenes are presented with individual chapter stops, but are not each directly selectable from the disc's menu; you must watch them all the way through or use the skip button. Descriptions and running times are as follows:

Baku tells Tic'Tic that the "Mammouks" (i.e. Mammoths) have arrived in the valley.(:48)

Old Mother tends to a dying man, reacts severely when a mountain goat is killed, and talks to Tic'Tic about D'Leh. (1:55)

After the hunt, Yagahl tribesmen gossip both negatively and positively about D'Leh. (:55)

Baku unsuccessfully tries to impress Tic'Tic by helping him up a slope (:31)

In the warlord's camp, Evelet flashes back to childhood memories of the slaughter of her people.(:47)

An extensive alternate tiger-pit sequence (2:48)

D'Leh and Tic'Tic arrive at the fortress of Nakudu's tribe. (:51)

An ailing Old Mother asks to be taken to a place where she can see the mountains (:39)

D'Leh and Tic'Tic contend with a sand storm. (:35)

“One Eye" is shown ratting out the head warlord.(:44)

Next is a duo of featurettes, also SD and 16x9. A Wild and Wooly Ride (13.17) brings prehistory to vivid screen life from pyramids to period animals. Here the director and those working on visual effects show how the effects of mammoths, terror birds, and sabre tooth were brought to screen. Film clips have a frame rate issue.

Inspiring and Epic (12.57) is narrated by an author of a book that Emmerich read. His belief is that we are missing pages from our history books. He believes there was at least one advanced civilization on earth during the stone age and we know nothing about them. So, this is how real history influenced story and design elements. It also explains why I believe the movie is far fetched – it’s based on this guy’s theories from evidence he’s collected. How reliable or valid the data he collected is up for debate, I’m sure. Film clips have a frame rate issue.

Lastly, a digital copy of the film is available for iPods or Windows Media. Just go to Digital Copy: 10,000 BC and type in the authorization code included on a leaflet inside the BD case.

IN THE END...

I am not surprised that I liked the quality of the BD presentation. Warner Bros. has consistently done an excellent job in delivering very fine product. I’m also not surprised I was disappointed with this film. Could the movie have been better utilizing the same ideas? Absolutely. But it’s the style of filmmaking that prevents it from being anything more than an action hit for teenagers. After all, I liked Independence Day when it was released (I was 18 then), but I was also at the age when I knew the jokes in the film completely ruined the movie. Now it’s unbearable. Emmerich has two new features in production; 2012 being my interest. The Mayan calendar ends that year and some people say that’s when the world ends. It’s a good disaster flick idea but also a possible disaster of a film if nothing changes in the aforementioned areas.

Michael Osadciw
June 21, 2008.

Review System

Sam Posten · 06-21-2008, 05:46 PM

Hey, I liked ID4! I might check this one out as a rental... Orrrr since I'm about to fly to vegas...

Let me ask about the digital copy, since I've never played with it, if someone wanted to let me have a copy for my iPod and they never planned on claiming it for themselves, could they just hand me the code and I'd download it direct off that WB site? It's not actually on the disk itself? Do other DD versions work like this? If anyone actually has a code they arent using and it works like I've described, please PM me! =)

Sam

Michael Osadciw · 06-21-2008, 06:51 PM

Sam

I know there are many Emmerich fans. I think he has talent - but he's too hit and miss for me. I've disliked more than I've liked.

Re: the download - I'm sure Warner would not want that to happen!! It's not on a disc, just a code. Is it a one time download? Probably. I haven't tried it. I'm not a download guy. For many reasons, I just can't bring myself to support non-physical media, or portable media (mostly regarding the anti-social aspect of it and carrying things around when I could find better ways of enjoying the world around me outside of my home - I'm fairly self-disciplined that way. I like to leave my home theater at home. That's me, but I know everyone is different).

Mike

Ron-P · 06-21-2008, 08:48 PM

I plan to blind buy this one. Thanks for the review!

Joseph J.D · 06-21-2008, 09:52 PM

I actually enjoy Emmerich's work.....sure they're all big, dumb action/sci-fi flicks, but they are entertaining to watch - to me at least. I might pick this up cheap.

**HTF Ads**

TonyD · 06-21-2008, 10:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ron-P

I plan to blind buy this one. Thanks for the review!

Don't do it.

i like just about everything from Emmerich.(not godzilla)
but not this one.
maybe he needs his former partner back.

movie was just pointless.

the truehd track was great and the picture was terrific though.

Ron-P · 06-21-2008, 11:46 PM

Story, plot, acting quality, don't care. It's an entertaining popcorn movie, I expect nothing but to enjoy the ride.

TonyD · 06-21-2008, 11:58 PM

i hope you enjoy it ron, as for "Story, plot, acting quality, don't care", i'm with you on that.
but for 'It's an entertaining popcorn movie" not so much.

certainly worth a rental, but i could never watch it again.

Ron-P · 06-22-2008, 09:23 PM

Well, maybe I should just rent it then. Thanks for the heads up.