However the reality is a flat, empty, joyless romp through time in a film which should have given much more.

On paper the premise is a good one. Set at the end of the ice age, 10,000 B.C follows a tribe of mammoth hunters as their world is turned upside down when they are attacked and captured by a group of slave raiders.

Young tribe member D'leh, played by relative newcomer Steven Strait, then leads a handful of survivors on a journey of prophesies, strange new worlds, gods, myths and amazing creatures to free his people and save the love of his life Evolet before it's too late.

Unfortunately, 10,000 B.C fails to live up to the straight-forward, formulaic-but-fun films Emmerich has made his name with (Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow).

The film's plot is in itself a decent attempt at a story and should have worked well, however the film is flawed by cripplingly poor dialogue and wreaks of a good idea which got lost in a barrage of over-enthusiastic special effects.

The special effects in the film are undeniably spectacular, with eerily realistic mammoths and vast ancient civilisations aplenty.

But the film is over-dependant on these to get through it's 109 minute running time unscathed, and it doesn't take long to realise that these CGI mammoths put in a far less hairy performance than their real life counter-parts.

The acting throughout 10,000 B.C is consistently poor and the cliché ridden script, written by Emmerich and prolific film composer Harold Kloser, rapidly becomes tiresome.

Steven Strait, as D'Leh, is uncharismatic and uninteresting, making it almost impossible to sympathise with, or care about, his quest.
The absurdly over-the-top Affif Ben Badra, as the slave raiders' leader, and mindless heroine Camilla Bella, as love interest Evolet, top off a cast which was clearly chosen on the basis of good looks over acting talent.

The film's grand finale is a truly spectacular sight to see but feels empty without the kind of character development needed to generate an interest in the events unfolding. The result is an unengaging series of images which are ultimately meaningless beyond being pretty to look at.
Similarities can easily be drawn between 10,000 B.C and Mel Gibson's equally ambitious Apocalypto and of the two the latter is vastly superior.

Although both films follow a simple narrative it is Gibson's emphasis on character development and the subtle use of CGI that marks the difference, employing it to punctuate the point rather than make it ensure that it's impact is not lost.

On the whole 10,000 B.C is a disappointing film and one which should have been a huge, special effects driven spectacular, much in the same vein as Michael Bay's excellent Transformers.

he end result however is a watered down, underdeveloped idea which promised so much but delivered so little – a mammoth failure if you will.