Coming off some rather poor reviews, I expected failure from this movie, and the first ten minutes delivered all the fail I anticipated. After that, it drastically improved, and while it didn't succeed as an epic, it was very lively and highly imaginative.
Starting with the bad, most of the dialogue just plain sucks. It's great that they tried to make the people sound simple, being this is 10,000 BC, but the kids (D'leh and Evolet) had these really painfully Arab-esquire accents and awkward dialogue reminiscent of Attack of the Clones Padme and Anakin. The dumb little kid who follows the hunters also is an embarrassing addition, but thankfully his dialogue is limited.
The minor characters, such as the English-speaking African chief, are the only characters who really shine with their simplistic dialogue, and even D'leh sometimes narrowly misses having his lines crumble to sheer stupidity.
Also a major detractment is the narrator, who is mostly completely un-needed save to further some events. Other times, we really don't need to hear him, such as the very end when the Old Mother supposedly 'breathes life' into Evolet. The images showed this clearly enough without needless narration.
In the beginning, the special effects are rather poor, as you can very clearly see that a character doesn't fit in the background environment, as if they were filmed in front of a green screen, and then attempts at digitally removing the green glare only smeared the picture.
Also, it was clearly not necessary to have the ice people of D'leh speak English, as they are the only English-speaking tribe in the movie, and it would have far better served the atmosphere to have them speaking a more primitive language, with more hand and facial gestures than verbosity.
The action sequences, costumes, cinematography, and sets were spectacular, and managed to tell the greater story (oppressed tribes banding together to overthrow a tyrant) in a way that far supersedes the main individual story of D'leh trying to save Evolet, though from the prophetic viewpoint, it was interesting how they twisted the two together, having it be that only D'leh's desire to save Evolet could make him lead the tribes to freedom. To sum, the movie succeeds in macro-storytelling, but fails in micro-storytelling.
As for the historical accuracy... it's very imaginative. And it requires you to use your imagination to explain certain things.
For one, the pyramids in what is clearly Egypt. I thought it was a great explanation to show them using Mammoths to pull their limestone (since even today historians are marveled at how they could have pulled such stones with manpower alone), and though the first pyramids were built some 7,000 years after this movie takes place, the movie makes sure that it is left open to interpretation.
What? The pyramids are barely half-way completed in the movie, and the slaves and tribes revolt against their ruler (a tall, godlike figure who must maintain his illusion of divinity to a point of never being seen; his personal slaves are all blind), leaving the pyramids incomplete. You could easily imagine that the pyramids could left incomplete for thousands of years, before a civilization known to us as the Egyptians of hieroglyphs and mummies worked to complete them. Sands could have eroded the pyramids, covering them up completely, or who knows? The movie doesn't definitively say the pyramids were built in 10,000 BC: only that they were begun, and presumably not completed by the original builders.
In all, it's a beautifully done movie, which suffers from poor micro-storytelling. If the total story were in the forefront, and the love story reduced to a subplot, I think it would have been a far better movie.
Starting with the bad, most of the dialogue just plain sucks. It's great that they tried to make the people sound simple, being this is 10,000 BC, but the kids (D'leh and Evolet) had these really painfully Arab-esquire accents and awkward dialogue reminiscent of Attack of the Clones Padme and Anakin. The dumb little kid who follows the hunters also is an embarrassing addition, but thankfully his dialogue is limited.
The minor characters, such as the English-speaking African chief, are the only characters who really shine with their simplistic dialogue, and even D'leh sometimes narrowly misses having his lines crumble to sheer stupidity.
Also a major detractment is the narrator, who is mostly completely un-needed save to further some events. Other times, we really don't need to hear him, such as the very end when the Old Mother supposedly 'breathes life' into Evolet. The images showed this clearly enough without needless narration.
In the beginning, the special effects are rather poor, as you can very clearly see that a character doesn't fit in the background environment, as if they were filmed in front of a green screen, and then attempts at digitally removing the green glare only smeared the picture.
Also, it was clearly not necessary to have the ice people of D'leh speak English, as they are the only English-speaking tribe in the movie, and it would have far better served the atmosphere to have them speaking a more primitive language, with more hand and facial gestures than verbosity.
The action sequences, costumes, cinematography, and sets were spectacular, and managed to tell the greater story (oppressed tribes banding together to overthrow a tyrant) in a way that far supersedes the main individual story of D'leh trying to save Evolet, though from the prophetic viewpoint, it was interesting how they twisted the two together, having it be that only D'leh's desire to save Evolet could make him lead the tribes to freedom. To sum, the movie succeeds in macro-storytelling, but fails in micro-storytelling.
As for the historical accuracy... it's very imaginative. And it requires you to use your imagination to explain certain things.
For one, the pyramids in what is clearly Egypt. I thought it was a great explanation to show them using Mammoths to pull their limestone (since even today historians are marveled at how they could have pulled such stones with manpower alone), and though the first pyramids were built some 7,000 years after this movie takes place, the movie makes sure that it is left open to interpretation.
What? The pyramids are barely half-way completed in the movie, and the slaves and tribes revolt against their ruler (a tall, godlike figure who must maintain his illusion of divinity to a point of never being seen; his personal slaves are all blind), leaving the pyramids incomplete. You could easily imagine that the pyramids could left incomplete for thousands of years, before a civilization known to us as the Egyptians of hieroglyphs and mummies worked to complete them. Sands could have eroded the pyramids, covering them up completely, or who knows? The movie doesn't definitively say the pyramids were built in 10,000 BC: only that they were begun, and presumably not completed by the original builders.
In all, it's a beautifully done movie, which suffers from poor micro-storytelling. If the total story were in the forefront, and the love story reduced to a subplot, I think it would have been a far better movie.