comment #1

Rich S. says ...

As Michael Bay would surely tell you, there's just one word for that....

comment #2

actionman says ...

Emmerich makes cheesy films which can be entertaining at times (Stargate, ID4, Day After Tomorrow). However, 10,000 BC just looks beyond lame.

comment #3

Dave says ...

Jeff, I often pick on you for your anti-rube feelings, but in the case of Emmerich. . . I am sooo with you.

The only one of his movies that I can tolerate today is Independence Day, and even then it hurts to watch.

In fact, true story: Independence Day was the film that ruined the summer blockbuster for me. Up until that point, I was largerly a "I love anything" kind of guy. I'd see movies every week, love them, enjoy them. Hardly saw anything that I considered "bad."

Opening night of ID4, I'm all hyped-up, been waiting for it since the Superbowl ad, and half-way through the movie, I was sick of it. Actually, I can place the exact moment: after they destroyed all the cities, in what was supposed to be the "cool" moment, I looked at the destroyed New York and thought, "Wait, this is supposed to be entertaining? They just killed millions of people, and Will Smith is cracking jokes? How is this fun?"

Now, I don't take myself that seriously, and I've lost a lot of that feeling, but to have a movie engender that kind of reaction (this was well before 9/11, too), it just left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm like, there is popcorn fun, there are great action movies, and I love great sci-fi, but NONE of them involve a wisecrackin' Will Smith.

I will give Michael Bay credit-- his movies are preposterous, but he does them in such an over-the-top way that you can't help but enjoy them on the purely schlock level. Armageddon may seem similar to ID4, but I enjoy the former SO MUCH more than the latter. Can't explain why-- maybe someone can help me out here.

Anyway. . . Roland Emmerich is bad.

comment #4

abuseintake says ...

I hate to sound like a pedantic jerk, but the preview of 10,000 B.C. shows Pleistocene fauna that didn’t coexist with the advanced faux civilizations that Roland has concocted for the film. Mastodons had taken the "dirt nap" in the Asian subcontinent about 2-3 million years ago. They did go on in North America up to 12-13,000 years ago and had a known range from the Yukon to what is now Tennessee. The Smilodont order of large Cat died out 10,000 years ago but there range at that time was limited to the Americas. I feel that the film would be better served by looking at the austerity of Quest for fire and assiduously adding the necessary summer movie elements.

comment #5

giantman says ...

Does stuff blow up real good? AWESOME!

Actually I'm more with Dave on this one, and it was actually ID4 and Godzilla that did it for me - one-two-punch and he's out! I don't know why exactly, but Roland's movies always seem silly and Michael Bay's seem loud and over-the-top... gosh, I'm using a lot of hyphens! Awesome!

My brain hurts thinking about this stuff. My son loves these movies and I'll be taking him to see 10,000BC and I'll probably enjoy it while it's on and then never see it again.

Maybe that is the meaning of it all really, fluff to enjoy for the moment and forget after? Gosh, sounds like most of my dates lately.

comment #6

frankbooth says ...

Of course there's a place for Roland Emmerich movies.

The Ti-D-Bowl Man needs something to watch as he floats around in his tiny little boat.

comment #7

nemo says ...

I could never figure out why Will Smith's girlfriend in Independence Day was a stripper. She was also a single mother, which had at least some plot relevance. But there was nothing in the plot that required her to be a stripper -- she could have just as easily been a nurse or an accountant.

My theory was that the director and the writers just didn't know any attractive single women who weren't strippers.

comment #8

D.Z. says ...

I was ok with ID4, but it was annoying that you could tell where he used green screen FX. Oh, well, he got his comeuppance with that Godzilla "remake", and hasn't been a hit-maker since then.

comment #9

nemo says ...

Hey, in the middle of the flames in that photo -- isn't that Uncle Festus's Crystal Skull?

comment #10

actionman says ...

"Oh, well, he got his comeuppance with that Godzilla "remake", and hasn't been a hit-maker since then."

Yeah, because The Patriot and The Day After Tomorrow were huge flops.

Do you even look at the imdb before making posts?

comment #11

Beaucoul says ...

Probably the biggest problem for me with Independence Day was Will Smith. He had some stupid one liners like, "man, I gotta get me one of these," that just made me wanna hurl.

It is possible for "big action flicks with huge explosions" to work sometimes. But they gotta have Arnold or Bruce in them.

comment #12

D.Z. says ...

action: "The Patriot" disappointed, and "The Day After Tomorrow" did only average box office numbers in the U.S.

comment #13

MovieBob says ...

All you need to do to realize what a rock-solid technical filmmaker Emmerich is is to watch ID4 right after Transformers and let how much better a film off roughly the same overall concept it is.

Emmerich has never been handed a screenplay that rose above the level of a big-budget B actioner, but the man has skills when it comes to establishing scale and building mood - particularly the mounting sense of dread - that most working directors would KILL FOR. And I say this as someone who thinks that his "Godzilla" travesty is one of the worst 'big' movies of all time.

comment #14

ThriceDamned says ...

Interesting...now I know that a $186m US and $545m worldwide against a $125m budget (Day after Tomorrow) is "average".

According to boxofficemojo, that puts it in the 46th place ALL TIME and 94th ALL TIME in the US. Meaning that out of all the dozens of thousands of films EVER MADE, only 45 of them made more money.

Thank you D.Z for once again proving what an unbelievable moron you are.

Thanks for playing, and grow a brain.

comment #15

D.Z. says ...

Thrice: Yeah, it's got a good worldwide box office, but that's only because the rest of the world believes in global warming. It's still a step down from ID4's box office, though, and only slightly higher than Godzilla's world wide total.