10,000 B.C.

Not since Raquel Welch donned a fur bikini have prehistoric times been so travestied as in 10,000 B.C. But the Roland Emmerich epic could use anything as exciting as Raquel Welch — it’s bad enough to be laughable but not laughable enough to be enjoyable. Omar Sharif narrates the story of two primitive young’uns who are part of one of those boring prophecies that tend to infect fantasy films. Camilla Belle plays the female, and her unusual blue eyes means that she’s coveted by a brutal "advanced” race that nearly wipes out her tribe. This means that our lady’s boyfriend Steven Strait must lead some survivors to find her, and perhaps gather a few more tribes to stop the strangely inept baddies from doing her in. That the film isn’t credible goes without saying: the climate and terrain change with the whims of the writers and the ethnic makeup of the primitive landscape is just as much a crazy quilt. But Emmerich and company are so ridiculously Pollyanna that they suck all the schlocky fun out of their concepts. 10,000 B.C. is chained to the aforementioned boring prophecy, which has the effect of making it painfully obvious where and how the movie is going to end. For all of the film’s silliness, it’s anchored by banality and never cuts loose enough to be really fun. The disc is offered in what I like to think of as "ironic” and "un-ironic” editions. For those who can consider this camp, one disc contains the movie, a ten-minute reel of deleted scenes and an alternate ending. For those credulous enough to take this seriously, there is a two-disc edition with a metal case and a tacky episode of Prehistoric Predators designed purely to separate you from your money.