The 80-second trailer for 10,000 BC, Warner Bros.’ PG-13 prehistoric action opus which has been getting heavy
rotation TV ad support these last two weeks but unreturned emails and phone calls to editors
all over Los Angeles with regard to screenings, makes it seem a passable enough piece of glossy, effects-laden, stroke-off entertainment for the undemanding 12- to 18-year-old set — no Quest for Fire, that’s for certain.

Directed by Roland Emmerich, the movie’s story follows a hunter (Steven Strait, above) who goes questing to rescue his kidnapped woman (Camilla Belle, of When a Stranger Calls and The Quiet), though I’m not sure how one goes about enlisting the orderly service of marauding woolly mammoths, as one sequence seems to suggest. (If that’s actually possible, I have a new addition to my list of Top 10 things to do when I come into possession of a time machine.) The first poster for the film, meanwhile, obviously takes its inspiration from that back-to-the-cliff one-sheet of last spring’s big hit, 300, and is trying to ring a subconscious bell of reflection and excitement in audiences. The other poster, though, is more problematic. Folks aren’t used to seeing mammoths cavorting about, and a couple weeks back I honestly had someone ask me if that was art for the latest animated Ice Age flick.