With the many dull, boring and hard to follow movies released in the last few months, director Roland Emmerich?s new film, 10,000 BC, stands out from the rest of the crowd. With impressive graphics and a compelling plot the movie makes for a few entertaining hours in the theater.

As plainly mapped out in the title, the film takes place thousands of centuries ago, during the times of wooly mammoths, nomadic tribes and cave wall finger-paint. With a backdrop of an ancient Earth and a tone reminiscent of a prehistoric vision, 10,000 B.C. outshines its contemporary action films.

This epic begins by giving us a history of the tribe?s people: prehistoric hunters find a little girl lost in the mountains next to the bodies of her family. As soon as they rescue her the tribe?s witch doctor, Old Mother, prophesies that because of the little girl, a warrior will rise from the tribe to rescue the clan and marry the girl.

About 20 years later the old witch doctor?s prophecy begins to unfold, as well as the movie’s dominating plot. The tribe ventures towards their last hunt before the winter. Mysterious four-legged demons (otherwise known as “horses”) ride into the camp and kidnap the girl rescued years ago, Evolet (Camilla Belle), and most of the village?s men.

D?leh (Steven Strait), Evolet?s expected husband, is especially devastated and sets out with three fellow tribesmen to free Evolet and the other captives. As they follow the captors, they are eventually joined by hundreds of others who have also been raided by the four-legged demons.

The movie unfolds into a grand quest to save Evolet and the rest of the tribesmen from across the world. The captured are being forced to work as slaves by some advanced prehistoric civilization. While the plot was fairly entertaining, the movie would have made more since if it was set in a more recent civilizaton, such as Mel Gibson?s Apocolypto.

Even though the movie literally took place in 10,000 B.C. most of the main characters spoke English, making it easy to understand without having to read a ton of annoying subtitles.

Despite the date and period of the movie, any mention of evolution was not present in the film. This fact alone shows that the director, writers and producers (Mark Gordon and Michael Wimer) were not trying to underlay social, political or scientific beliefs in their movie.

However, the glaring historical conflicts make the movie at times seem like a joke, with advanced civilizations set in a period when man was still supposed to be dragging his knuckles and drooling.

Actor Stephen Strait and actress Camilla Belle both give convincing performances in their roles even though they may not be extremely well known actors. The supporting cast also helps supplement the movie even in minor parts.

Though the movie took a little while to pick up, the fighting sequences were worth the wait. In the big finale, the tribesmen fight for their freedom amongst CGI-created monsters, with the rescuers raiding the settlement of the captors and causing hundreds of domesticated work mammoths to stampede across the wasteland.

Despite the intense premise of the film, the director and producers refrained from using the bloody, gory effects seen in Apocalypto.

In the wake of many senseless and plotless movies 10,000 B.C. stands out as a highly entertaining movie actually worth the $7.50 at the theater.

10,000 B.C. is playing at most local theaters. For show times, visit Fandango. For more movie reviews, visit Rotten Tomatoes.