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10 TV'S • 4 VIDEO GAMES - PGA & GOLDEN TEE
STONE AGE STORYTELLING
10,000 B.C. (PG-13) 10,000 B.C.. Roland
Emmerich's latest quasi-epic (after The Day
After Tomorrow), impresses in so many unim
pressive ways. The action flick isn't epic
enough to overcome its grievous historical
inaccuracies, nor is it cheesy enough to defeat
a complete lack of entertainment. These feats
are pretty impressive, considering a mammoth
budget used to create a grand lost world of
wooly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers and
pyramids. IMDB's mes
sage boards are ablaze
with arguments about
the necessity of his
torical accuracy in what
amounts to a popcorn
movie. 10,000 B.C. isn't a
documentary, but does it
need to be held to even
a modicum of a standard
for accuracy in its depic
tion of our distant past?
Or can we simply dismiss
the wildly incongruous
existence of mammoth hunters and pyramids
in a movie whose title suggests their appear
ance some 4000 years early with the offhand
universal excuse of "it's just a movie?'' The
answer is unsatisfyingly yes and no. Yes if
10.00C B.C. succeeded as sheer movie spec
tacle: no if the erroneousness interferes with
the actual telling of the story.
In the world of 10.000 B.C.. an Ice Age is
ending, and the herus of vooly mammoths
that sustain the Yagahl tribe, populated by
studly young hunter D'Leh (Steven Strait of
Undiscovered) and blue-eyed hottie Evolet
(Camilla Belle), are migraring less and less
often. After what may be the last annual
hunt—a disappointing CGI affair during
which everything appears to have been
greenscreened—a mysterious band of "four
legged demons" attack, making off with young
Evolet, and thus, sparking D'Leh's inner heroic
fire. Marching thousands of miles through
mountains, tropical
jungles and deserts, D'Leh
and his band of hunters
pick up other conquered
tribes, all apparently
African, on the way to
a river-based proto
civilization. The greatest
flaw of 10,000 B.C. may
be in its geography. The
trailers imply D'Leh's tribe
resides in present-day
North America, yet they
somehow find their way
to central Africa, ending up near a river one
can only guess to represent the Nile, Tigris or
Euphrates. This general lack of any geographi
cal cohesion troubled me to no end. Without
an engaging story or compelling characters to
cling to. 10.000 B.C. left me with f ar too much
time to strugg'e and fail, to make a whole out
of the ill-fitting p ; eces of this -battered lost
world.
Drew Wheeier
Steven Strait and Camilla Belle
NO PRISON SENTENCE
THE BANK JOB (R) The Bank Job, based on
the infamous 1971 robbery of a London bank,
doesn't stray far from the heist movie formula,
yet the film milks that staid old M.O. for all
it's excitingly worth and then some. Is it the
knowledge that if all these events really took
place as they are depicted, then they couldn't
have been scripted better? Could it be that
the heist itself is almost
secondary to the intricate
web of corruption and lies
upon which it is precariously
suspended? Who cares with
a film this good? In need of
money, shady car dealer Terry
Leather (Jason Statham) is
all ears when a pretty figure
from his past, model Martine
(Saffron Burrows), offers him
"too good to be true" inside
information about the Lloyds
Bank located on London's
Baker Street. Too bad Terry
doesn't know the whole
scheme is a put-on concocted by MI5, or 6, to
recover scandalous photos of a royal princess
from a Black Power-abusing thug monikered
Michael X (Peter De Jersey). Terry might be
even better off if he knew that one of the
safety deposit boxes he was about to rob also
belonged to porn mogul Lew Vogel (David
Suchet), while another contained incriminat
ing photos of some of England's top civil
servants. Amateur thieves at best, poor Terry
and his boyhood chums soon find themselves
swimming with professional sharks.
The Bank Job relies on its actor's anonym
ity to achieve the degree of realism required
ro make this true-life tale believable. Star
Statham is about the only familiar face, and
he isn't a household name outside of homes
in which C-list action-cum-
martial arts flicks don't run
24/7, which is exactly why
he needs a movie like The
Bank Job. The classy nature
of the film is a boon for
Statham, who burst onto the
crime movie scene with Guy
Ritchie's arty gangster flick,
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking
Barreb, before the minor hit.
The Transporter, started a
one-sided competition with
an over-the-hill Jean Claude
Van Damme for European
martial arts supremacy.
Statham's got a certain charisma lurking
beneath that is better suited for smart, mod
ish fare like The Bonk Job than trashy flicks
like Crank and WAR. Convoluted, suspenseful,
and fun, The Bank Job ranks right up there on
the shortlist of 2008's great films as well as
the long list of all-time great heist movies.
Drew Wheeler
Jason Statham
24 FLAGPOLE.COM • MARCH 12, 2008
MOVIES