Movie Review: 10,000 BC

I watch a lot of movies as most people know, so I decided that perhaps I would share my thoughts on some of them from time to time. Now that Holly and I have had a Netflix subscription for a while I'm getting plenty of exposure to television on DVD, but every so often I still go and grab a movie from the newly popular Redbox system.

So, while waiting for my most recent disc of Las Vegas to arrive, I stopped by Albertsons and got 10,000 BC to watch during as slow day at work. I had somewhat high hopes for the movie given that it was done by the people who did Independence Day and Day After Tomorrow, but I was incredibly disappointed.

The characters were completely unbelievable as individuals who would go on the type of adventures that they were going on, and the dialogue was completely stagnant and left much to be desired. I don't think I can remember one time when two characters had a conversation that lasted more than 3 or 4 lines at most.

Visually, the film was pretty good as the character of D,Leh wanders from the tops of the mountains to the rainforest, and then through the desert while tracking the marauders who had pillaged his small mountain village, but even then, the computer generated mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers were not up to snuff in my opinion.

What 10,000 BC turned out to be was a highly stylized documentary that was desperately trying to be a movie of some sort. If you haven't already seen it, and were planning to, save yourself the time and the money and look for something else.

#77: Fahrenheit 451

Well, I finally started working on my ultimate goal to read the Top 100 novels of all time this past week. I started with a book I already had a feeling would be enjoyable for me and that I had been wanting to read for a very long time. So, I went to the Provo Library last Saturday and picked up a copy of Fahrenheit 451 to read. It's only about 160 pages, so I finished all in one day, but it was a pretty good read. I can't say that I know everything about the message it was trying to convey, but for me the thing I got out of it most was the idea that free-thinking should not be suppressed. Yes, sometime free-thinking can be dangerous, dependent upon the person and what their thinking inspires them to do, but a large majority of thinking for ourselves and forming our own opinions on what is good, what is bad, what is worth remembering, etc allows us as an individual to avoid monotony and stagnation. It is a fine balance that all of us have to be careful of when filling our minds with thoughts. We have to make sure that our free-thinking isn't going to really cause a lot of detriment or harm to those who are around us.

The wife in Fahrenheit 451 was a slave to her visual stimulus and didn't want to think for herself, she just wanted to go along with the craze or fad of the time and be happy with that. Guy Montag on the other hand started to question what he was about, who he was, and what else there could be to make him happy. That was the biggest idea in the book to me. You have to make sure that you are happy because otherwise you have no point in being alive.

So, as the 77th book on the list, I was pleased with the outcome. Now, I just have to find another book that is actually available from the library to read next. It seems most of them are always checked out. However, it will need to wait until I finish a fantasy novel I'm reading, Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.