"B Rated by Robert W. Hammerle"

While widely reviled by most movie critics, "10,000 B.C." is a fun adventure film with occasional spectacular special effects. Think of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1954) or "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1959) with 21st Century state of the art digitalized effects and you have captured anything I could possibly tell you in a review.

Of course the premise is spectacularly stupid. There were no competing organized societies shortly after the time of Neanderthal Man, but why should that matter? There are no vampires either, but we love vampire movies,don't we?

To our knowledge, there has yet to be discovered life elsewhere in the universe, but we loved the "Alien" trilogy as well as most of the Star Wars movies. There is no Superman, Batman or X-Men, but how many of you aren't actively waiting for this summer's new Batman movie "The Dark Knight" (with Christian Bale and Heath Ledger), not to mention Robert Downey, Jr. in "Iron Man?"

In other words, it is amazing to me how certain critics can condemn a movie for its complete lack of historical accuracy while embracing others without giving such criteria a moment's thought. "Transformers" was one of the great action movies released in 2007, and to my knowledge no one has seen gigantic, killer robots roller skating down any of our nation's interstates. Or did I miss something?

Regardless, give "10,000 B.C." a small break and just take it for what it is. A small, non-violent agrarian society is attacked by predatory invaders, who enslave most of the tribe. Thereafter, our hero (Steven Strait) goes on a quest to free his kidnapped clansman, one of whom is to be his future wife.

Along the way, he fights blizzards in the mountains; risks death crossing a desert; hunts giant mammoths; and battles exceeding large saber-tooth tigers and giant, man-eating ostriches with an incredibly bad attitude. What is there not to like about this movie?

While I certainly would never compare the cinematography of this movie with the classic "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, it is at times quite dazzling, particularly with the shots in the high mountains. (It was filmed in South Africa, Namibia and New Zealand.) Furthermore, even if some of you are convinced that a movie of this type is simply to low-brow to waste your money on, the climatic battle scene is truly dazzling and worth the price of admission by itself.

And for what it is worth, my Saudi exchange student, "Z." liked this movie a great deal. So if you can suspend reality and approach this movie with the perspective of a teenage boy, then you are in for a pretty good ride.

Let me put it this way. This most recent product from the imagination of Roland Emmerich falls somewhere between his hammy "Independence Day" (1996) and the far superior "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004). So if you liked Will Smith single handedly saving the world from aliens in the former, and you had fun with Dennis Quaid tracking across the frozen Empire State to save his son (Jake Gyllenhaal) in the latter, then you just might surprise yourself with your reaction to "10,000."

So go ahead and go. You know you want to. You can always feel guilty later.