Going for an epic movie always keeps me excited. After ‘Braveheart’ and ‘Gladiator’, ‘Lord Of the Rings’ enchanted me so much that it just need a tag of epic movie for me to watch any crap [am a Lord of the Rings fan, till the very last breath and can’t have enough of it no matter how many times I watch it]. And frankly speaking it’s an obsession about which I regret a lot, just because it takes me to a movie hall to watch crap stuff like ‘10,000 B.C.’
As far as the plot goes there is nothing much in it, just like ‘300’, but it ain’t 300. That was a movie which had its moment of high intense action, packed with brutality and some of the best visual effects. This is the story of a tribe living in snowy mountains and feeding themselves by hunting mammoths every year. There is an ‘Old Mother’ [Mona Hammond] in the tribe who makes a prophecy about the ending of the tribe, by four legged demons [horse back riders] and how the tribe’s saviour will be the man of the ‘Blue Eyed’ girl Evolet [Camilla Belle]. There is our hero a boy in the tribe named D’leh [Steven Strait] who grows with Evolet and love blossoms between the two. The two grows up and then come the time when the prophecy is to be fulfilled and four legged demons takes Evolet and other tribesmen as captive. After this begins the epic journey of our hero to new undiscovered lands in search of her lady love.
Frankly speaking there is nothing wrong with the plot and I can go with it, if overall the movie had been somewhat close to an exciting package. The narration is slow and from the very beginning one feels bored, and the boredom just keeps on pilling and pilling and pilling up till the movie ends. The ‘epic action’ is too less and too late, and the runtime of 100 minutes seems to be 10,000 minutes.
Trivia:-
· The name of our hero D’leh is spelled “HELD’ backwards. The director chose it as ‘Held’ in German means ‘Hero’.
· The image of a wet saber tooth tiger was the biggest challenge in front of the special effects team.
Getting something like this from Roland Emmerich [of the Independence Day and day after tomorrow fame] is a big let down. While watching the movie you constantly sees flashes of ‘Gladiator’ [when hero faces beasts], ‘Apocalypto’ [the chase element], 300 [the narration style] and many more.
The fight scenes are counted and so is their duration. The mysticism begins and ends with the Old Woman, who has nothing to do except sit with one expression on her face and watch the live events happening at the far off places. Oh yes at the end there is a little magic too by which she gives life to the dead.
As far as the journey and adventure part goes there are too many tribes interwoven together. Even before you can interpret one, there is another and all of a sudden from Stone Age you reach to the advanced Iron Age.
In a nut shell and to summarize it, take my advice avoid it by all means. But if like me you are bitten by the epic/Lord of the Rings bug, then you just can’t help it and have to suffer.
