“10,000 B.C.” is the latest exercise in commercial schlock from Roland Emmerich that really has no redeeming attributes whatsoever. From the opening line of Omar Sharif’s pseudo-intellectual narration, I had an insidious feeling that sitting through one-hundred minutes of this comically overblown junker would be a strenuous endeavor. How awful is it? Let’s just say that the best acting job is turned in by a virtual Sabretooth tiger.
The least Emmerich could’ve done is give the audience some big-budget special effects to compensate for his apparent lack of focus, but he didn’t he even do that. He insists on trying to get by with derisory characters and some mythological mumbo jumbo involving “four legged demons,” which is quite asinine seeing as how nothing even remotely resembling a plot ever rears its head. I could go on forever about how much of a joke this all is, but does it really matter?
All you need to know is that the performances are lazy, the dialogue is laughable, and, frankly, I’ve seen more striking visuals on the Discovery Channel. Not even the much-hyped Sabretooth could spring some life into this stale excuse for a blockbuster, so I highly recommend finding a more pleasurable way to spend a night out at the movies.
- ½ out of 4
I caught an advance screening of “Romulus, My Father” on HD Net last week and was actually quite engaged by its disquieting depiction of immigrant life in 1960’s Australia. Eric Bana delivers one of his most deeply affecting performances as a struggling Romanian trying to maintain an apt existence for his family and captures the solemnity of dead end farm life with sizeable integrity.
The way in which he communicates with his son can be very tender at times even if Kodi Smit-McPhee walks a fine line between enthusiastic and irritating throughout most of the film. Their bond is one of enduring grace and reverence, so no matter how grueling their living conditions become, they will always be right behind one another.
As Bana’s estranged wife, Franka Potente strays a long distance from “The Bourne Identity” to give a manically disheartening take on a loopy housewife who suddenly develops an insatiable sexual appetite that only pushes her further away from responsiblity. Together, they make an obscure tale of Australian farm living into a dense domestic drama equipped with an ending worthy of an ambiguously anticlimactic literary tale.
- *** out of 4
Doug Liman’s “Jumper” is a wannabe action flick supported by a seemingly half-baked premise involving teleportation and felonies, not necessarily in that order. He opens with a blithe glimpse into the life of a troubled young man who unexpectedly discovers that he can travel anywhere in the world without thinking twice, but sadly flies off course during a jumbled, ineffective collage of fast-paced techno crap. I guess after the success of “The Bourne Identity” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” Liman has decided to let creativity escape through the front window in favor of tepid thrills and overproduced noisemaking that never amounts to much more than a forgettable distraction.
Hayden Christensen (as usual) comes off as way too whiny and uninspiring for me to care and not even the “Colossus of Camp” Samuel L. Jackson can rescue this one from an early demise. As great as he is, I often question some of the choices Jackson has made over the past few years and hope that he still has another “Pulp Fiction” or “A Time to Kill” left in the tank. I didn’t totally hate this film, but none of it really resonated enough to warrant an elaborate plot dissection.
Had I been a “jumper” myself, I could’ve extricated myself without having to sit through the rest of this pitiful wreck. But as Jackson’s Roland says, “Only God should have this power.”
- * ½ out of 4
Side Note: I originally settled on one star, but the fact that the creators actually know of The Tragically Hip song “Ahead By a Century” is worth a half star in itself. Also, that nickname I developed for Jackson, it’s taken, so come up with your own.
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