ONE MILLION YEARS B.C.
Well, its easy to make fun off.
But "mockablity" does not a good movie make.
What else is there to say about One Million Years B.C.
Well, maybe that it has some great stop motion. And guess what monster fans? That's some vintage Ray Harryhousand stop motion too. If only the dinosaurs had gotten more screen time instead of just popping up now and then for no good reason. It might have been a better movie.
As such its bland an mildly bitter little flick.
But one of the most annoying thing about this movie is that writers George Baker and Michael Carreras wrote an entire script in Caveman's. Unfortunatly, in a movie that is obviously driven by dialogue, its usually a good idea to have dialogue that people can understand.
Then again, having unintelligible dialogue is probably a good thing since movies of this type are notorious for they're stupid dialogue (have you ever seen Dinosaur Planet? I laughed like a mad man).
On the other hand the plot is as murky as the bottom of the Atlantic after an oil spill. As near as I can tell resides with some brown hared cave dude who is cased out of his tribe, finds another tribe, is cased out of that one, but this time takes Raquel Welch with him. Pissed that he was kicked out of two tribes in a row (man, this guy can't catch a break can he?) he goes home and takes over so he can lead a war against Welch's home tribe. Before the cavemen can finish whaling on each other a volcano erupts and buries them all. The End.
Some plot, huh? Hum. . .where to start? How about we start with Raquell Welch. Don't expect much. She walks through her part at a casual stroll. In a few scenes it looks like her brain has been removed and replaced by a trained rat. Kind of like Alicia Silverstone in Batman and Robin. Unfortunatly the only thing that made Ms. Silverstone's acting bearable was the fact that I could laugh at her flat as a pan cake delivery. Ms. Welch's delivery is flat, but I have no idea what the hell she's saying. Though I suppose that's a good thing.
What makes Welch's (grape juice) acting bearable? Well all throughout the movie she wears a prehistoric, animal hide bikini who's top is just big enough to wash the windshield of my car. And yet it still manages to lift and separate.
Oh, and did you know that cave girls wore water proof mascara? Little known fact right there.
Now, for the dinosaurs. I've always had a problem with movies that portray cave men and dinosaurs as living at the same time. I had a dinosaur obsession when I was 5 and was mighty confused when I read that dinos and humans lived at different times. The movies said the did, the books said they didn't. It practically gave a 5 year old Psy Chosis a nervous breakdown.
Hey, I was 5. When I was six I excepted the fact that dinos and cavemen lived in different ages. What were the screenwriters' excuses?
To make matters worse, aside from one excellent stop motion T-rex (I mean, it looks like this thing is in the frame. I could practically touch this thing. If you must see this movie see it for the T-rex vs. cavemen fight) most of the dinosaurs are unrecognizable misshapen creatures, or (in the worst of cases) iguanas and crocodiles inserted into the movie through blue screen special FX. But at least there good SPFX.
Unfortunatly dinos do not a good movie make. Good acting would have helped. Good writing would have helped even more. Dialogue people who have lived after one million years B.C would have helped most of all.
Fortunately the movie has some cool scenes, the best human vs. dinosaur fight in the pre-Jurassic Park era of SPFX, and its really fun to provide cynical, MST3K like translations for the cavepeople's dialogue. If you're a fan of MST3K then this is definitely a must see. If not, then skip it.
RATING(OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE
THIS IS ONE OF THOSE MOVIES THAT MAKES ME GO "BLAH."
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