10,000 B.C.

The future has been done to death. We have seen way into the next century, and Emmerich himself has given us a glimpse into The Day After Tomorrow. As for history, it always has its claimants. So, why not prehistory?

Look at the bright side. All Emmerich had to do was choose a remote snow-capped mountain and pick some unknown actors. He didn8217;t have to bother about the clothes 8211; prehistorians only wore rags; the gadgetry 8211; they only had curiously carved spears; facts 8211; which part of land housed, what looks like, North Americans and Africans together, separated by a mountain, with the former speaking English!!!; the acting 8211; all they had to do was cry or shout, from behind scraggly beards; or even ponder over the script 8211; didn8217;t Mel Gibson make Apocalypto recently, and didn8217;t Ice Age have some mammoths and sabre-toothed lions? The director could pour all his millions into those computer-generated animals and some special effects, and there he has it 8211; 10,000 B.C. Some more money, and he may have been tempted to increase the gore quotient, which is thankfully low by even 2008 A.D. standards.

There8217;s a story about a dying tribe of mammoth hunters and the prophecy about the blue-eyed child who would save it. That8217;s what sends our hero D8217;Leh Strait out over the mountain and across the sea of sand into the lair of an impossibly tall man who calls himself the 8220;Almighty8221;, rules the land and makes hundreds slaves. And apparently builds pyramids, with the help of mammoths. His army consists of another people from another land 8211; Persia, Mongolia? Browbeaten, the slaves have come to believe the Almighty is actually God. Yes, they believed in Him.

Of course they haven8217;t contended for D8217;Leh8217;s love for the blue-eyed Evolet Belle, among those who has been taken slave and for whom he is determined to win this war.

What we haven8217;t contended for is that D8217;Leh8217;s powers don8217;t flow from just this pretty face but an 8220;Old Mother8221; back home 8211; a wise woman who can read the future and make prophecies. At every hint of a danger, she swoons and sways, complete with her elaborate headgear, and everything turns out okay.

She is the real hero of this prehistoric saga, gamely carrying on that spittle-spilling act as Emmerich tries to juggle around his prehistoric world and indecipherable accents. As any wise one would tell you, that doesn8217;t portend a very bright future.