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Acting
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Directing
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Story
Starring: Raquel Welch, John Richardson, Percy Herbert
Director: Don Chaffey
Running Time: 96 mins
One Million Years B.C. is a British film about a caveman who is banished from his tribe, and then banished from the new tribe he takes refuge with. He then leaves on an epic journey with a local cavegirl, amidst man’s relentless battle with the dinosaurs.
Honestly, there’s nothing interesting to say about this film, because nothing actually happens. There’s no dialogue, it’s all in caveman speak (no subtitles either), meaning that the story has to be unbelievably simple so that you can understand, and the majority of the plot is just one caveman ambling aimlessly around the Earth.
One thing that is ridiculously stupid about this film, yet that I’m willing to accept, is the human-dinosaur conflict. Although the two actually existed about 60 million years apart, it’s not the most irritating factual error, because it allows for, potentially, a bit of fun and fantasy.
However, you don’t get much fun from this film at all. This is again largely down to the fact that the story is so overly simplistic and predictable, that when the dinosaurs turn up, it’s pretty dull to watch them ‘wreak havoc’ on the humans.
Also, that is because of the truly excellent special effects in this film. (See if you can notice a bit of sarcasm in that sentence.) I understand that at the time, these toy dinosaurs running around would have had a much more profound effect than now, but honestly, it’s just hilarious how bad everything in this film is.
As I said, the fact that the whole film is spoken in caveman forces the story to be unbelievably simplistic so that you can understand it, but it just ends up being terribly dull, because there is no story: A caveman is banished, he walks, he’s banished, he walks, the end. That’s why it’s not at all entertaining to watch.
Overall, this gets a 2.5, because it’s an unbelievably dull, stupid, overly simple film that doesn’t ever grab your imagination like it should.
