I love Roland Emmerich. The first movie I've seen at cinema is Independence Day. I was almost 7 years old, and I was totally blown away. Since that October day, I have a man-crush for mr. Emmerich.

I followed his work since then and I liked all his movies - including Godzilla, which is a great movie for kids. More about Emmerich in another post.
I haven't seen 10000 BC at the cinema, unfortunately, but I grabbed a copy as soon as it was launched on DVD. What I discovered was a wonderful movie, much better than I thought it would be (and of course I thought it would be at least entertaining).

The criticism this movie receives drives me mad. So let me defend it, using just mild spoilers (the big'uns are hidden by clicky stuff)

1. Historical and factual inaccuracies.

The goddamn Wikipedia article about this movie has a giganto-list of inaccuracies, and I can't read the IMDB forum without being annoyed by people that point them out. Usually it's something along the lines of „I was interested in this movie, the trailer was misleading, it was supposed to be historically accurate" or „It's called 10000 BC, ergo it has to be a realistic".

Allow me to show you something:

Pictured: trailer scene that implies the movie is, like, totally accurate.

Now, if you watched the trailer, saw a poster or even read the synopsis, you should know it's a FANTASY movie set in a seemingly realistic world. Kinda like Hercules was supposed to travel in Europe and Asia. So why the hell do you complain about mammoths building the pyramids 12000 years ago?

A buddy of mine complained about „how do they reach from the Alpes to Africa without crossing the sea?". Now, if you're one of the two people that hasn't figured out their itinerary, here it is: they live somewhere in the Caucasus, maybe Georgia or Azerbaidjan. They cross the mountains to Asia Minor and Levant (that's roughly around Anatolia and northern Arabia) and then... well, then they somehow bypass the pyramids to reach southern Egypt, and travel back towards North. Yes, it's a bit dumb, but who cares? There are countless examples of such geographical „errors" in other movies.
There's an alternate ending, which kinda solves the geography problem. Here it is (unfinished, it was just an extra).

Speaking of Levant, the protagonists are stalked by Terror birds, which yes, were real - a fact constantly disputed by IMDB trolls. But they lived in South America, not Levant. And nobody cares, because Terror birds are awesome. The Smilodon never lived in Africa, and horses weren't tamed until 4000 - 3500 BC. Of course, the horses could've been tamed by the Atlanteans though.
Which leads me to another point: Atlantis. That's a fantastic plot device, which is very easy to miss - and missing it leads to another interpretation of the movie. Atlantis is shown for about one second, when Evolet looks at the map and telescope. Until then I was half-expecting 10000 BC to be a Stargate prequel.

My final argument is this: my former teacher of History of Religion showed this movie to his students. It was a very accessible way to show basic shamanism and animism, basic primitive culture, and a basic introduction to theories such as von Daniken's.
My father is a history teacher (actually both my parents are), and he loved the movie. Once the credits rolled, he gave the verdict: „It was a great fairy tale".

2. The story and the characters were bad.

I disagree. Like my father, I think the movie was a sweet, light-hearted fairy tale.

Emmerich's characters are usually very simple, representing just a few essential archetypes. Here, we have the instantly likeable hero - D'leh, which is a pretty cool guy, eh hunts mammoths and doesn't afraid of anything. D'leh is beautiful, brave, skilled and noble. He LOVES Evolet - which doesn't really have anything else to do other than look good (her eyes are fascinating) and seem to be a kind girl. She's instantly likeable too, because she also has a sad history (similar to Rahan's. Ever heard of him?).

It's a bit disappointing to learn she wore contact lenses.

We've also got the lulzy and dumb young sidekick, which is almost as good as the dumb guy from Stargate. There's the cool mentor, played by That Guy From Sunshine. And the bad guys, two of them sticking out. The most evil bad guy has a digitally altered voice, which is an obvious reference to Stargate and it was clearly intended to mislead fans until Atlantis is revealed. We also meet a cool black dude that proves to be a worthy ally...

I understand that appreciating characters is related to taste, but really, there's nothing wrong about them here. They're simple - but so is Grenouille. The difference is that people are more attracted to the weirdness of Grenouille, while characters that aspire to a normal, happy life are more ordinary, despite their beautiful moral traits. I think D'leh, Evolet and Tic'tic (the mentor) are similar to characters from a fairy tale. Or to Merry and Pippin - they're not deep, but the way they're characterised makes people like them a lot.

And now to the actual story.

The magazine Archaeology had an article giving the movie a bad review due to the inaccuracies.[[Citation needed]].
You gotta be really stupid to do this.

The story is a c1assic adventure. If you like Tarzan, Rahan (yay Europeans), Conan, Ice Age, Apocalypto... or fairy tales, you can like this one too. It's a great journey, from the snowy mountains and impressive valleys of the Caucasus to the lush jungles of prehistoric Anatolia, and from the beautiful african savannas through the desert, up to the Mountains of the Gods. We've got plenty of adventure - a mammoth hunt, crossing the mountains, old-fashioned fights, a tense chase through the Terror birds' territory, we meet a Sabretooth tiger, we cross the desert, we infiltrate the city of the Atlantean god, and we witness a huge riot. What's not to like about this?

Are we going to criticise a movie for being light-hearted? It's not truly violent, despite the fearsome monsters and the combat isn't a bloodbath. There are some pretty... unnerving moments, like the chilling, alien atmosphere of The Almighty's palace or the chase through the tall grass. But they add a lot to the atmosphere, it's a great contrast to the warm, friendly atmosphere of the rest of the movie.
Do people really think Indy 4 is a better adventure than this movie? Seriously, Shia LaBeouf and his monkey allies swinging through the jungle and chasing communists are a million times worse than anything in 10000 BC.

And the ending?

***SPOILER***

I guess I'm either romantic or crazy.

3. Roland Emmerich sucks.

Well, no, he doesn't.

Kinda like Michael Bay, only he's gay.

The movie is technically flawless (funny how Emmerich removed 50% of the CGI fur to speed up production, because „it looked the same anyway"), and it's also VERY beautiful. The landscapes are amazing. I especially liked the final shot of their valley back in Caucasus. The right word to describe it is „majestic". You can say what you want about the character design - I loved it. Mr. Emmerich is a skilled director, and he obviously enjoys his work. The great adventure could've been utter crap, but he handled it very well. It's HIS project and HIS story. It's clear that a lout of soul was put in making this movie.

Even if you don't like it, I guarantee that your kids will love it. Hell, I can't wait to watch it with my kid!

It's simply magic.