As part of my birthday celebration, Ray and I hit the theaters, and I finally got to see 10,000 BC, which I have been really wanting to see.

It is actually really well done ... not just a simple action adventure flick. It centers around a small tribe of non-nomadic mammoth hunters. In recent years, the number of mammoths have been dwindling. When a girl with mysterious blue eyes arrives after her whole trive is destroyed by "demons with four legs," the medicine woman/shaman predicts that a major change is coming. In the last year of the hunt, the demons will arrive, destroying life as they know it. It will be up to hunter-warrior to rise to the occasion to stop them and find true love with their new arrival.

The current warrior decides to leave the tribe and go off in the hopes of stopping the future before it destroys them all. Everyone assumes he fled in fear.

Then, leap forward a few years where the warrior's son is reaching the edge of manhood. He has been mocked for years because he is the son of a coward. He has also fallen in love with the girl with blue eyes.

The time has come to prove himself as the hunters prepare to go ofter the mammoths. The young man who takes down the mammoth bull will get to take on the new role of warrior.

As you can imagine, our young hero arranged for the death of the mammoth, but it did not go as planned, and he actually did it by mistake. This brings into question the fact of whether he earned the right to be warrior and take the hand of the blue eyed girl.

Ironically, all of his concerns are for naught because the demons arrive and take her and most of the hunters with them to be enslaved. It is up to him, his mentor, the one remaining hunter, and another young man to head out to rescue them.

This leads to all sorts of adventure and wonderful action and special effects. In the process, the movie explores some theories related to the fact that the pyramids of Giza and the sphinx date back to 10,000 B.C. It also bringed into light a possible source for the identification of Orion.

It was an awesome movie that could be taken as a simple high romp in adventure or for the deeper anthropological, historical theories that are hinted at.

The one tough this is that the movie is a little slow in the beginning as it sets up the tale, but it quickly takes on the form of a traditional fantasy tale (without the magic, of course). The protagonist is an orphan and a mocked outsider among his people. He is forced to rise above what he thinks are his limits with the help of a mentor to achieve what has been predicted in prophecy. When the mentor falls, he is able to do what must be done all for the love of a woman.