10,000 B.C. (12A)

There's enough hair swirling around in Roland Emmerich's blockbuster to choke a plug-hole the size of France.

The cavemen have dreadlocked bonces, the mammoths are rugs on legs, even the sabre-toothed tiger looks in need of a vigorous combing. Still, I suppose if you are going to tell a spectacular shaggy dog story it's as well not to skimp on the tresses.

The director of Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow knows the secret of a successful popcorn movie is to give the public what it wants. In this case, that means a simple story, big beasts, and towering, stupendous, don't-even-think-about-engaging-a-brain-cell silliness.

Steven Strait plays a young hunter named D'Leh. No, I don't know why these primitive peoples, who hadn't got round to inventing the wheel yet, were putting apostrophes in their names. The love of D'Leh's life is Evolet (Camilla Belle). Disappointingly for those hoping to see Belle do a Raquel Welch in One Million Years BC, Evolet dresses to suit the freezing weather. When she is captured by marauders, D'Leh goes in pursuit, discovering his destiny along the way.

A few tedious sections aside, and with a nod to everything from The Lord of the Rings to Apocalypto, Emmerich's CGI-heavy film powers along like a sabre-toothed tiger in pursuit of its tea. Alongside the fanged one are those awesome mammoths and a crew of psycho turkeys. D'Leh faces them all with nary a grunt of complaint.

Principled, brave, resourceful, good to his lady and kind to animals (sometimes), he's an amiable hero. Down with metrosexual man with his power showers and moisturiser, and all hail the caveman! On second thoughts, the mammoths were cuddlier and would probably require less clearing up after. All hail the mammoth!

There are some pretty convincing-looking woolly mammoths in this prehistoric effects fest, but not are anywhere near as woolly as the story, which has been pretty much done to death.

D’Leh (Steven Strait) is a young and hunky mammoth hunter whose prehistoric lady love Evolet (Camilla Belle) has been kidnapped by a bunch of warriors who have turned up out of the blue.

D’Leh and his caveman cronies put together a posse to go and track down the bad guys and bring back Evolet. Along the way they face all sorts of prehistoric peril before apparently wandering into Stargate and some kind of lost civilisation.

It’s all so much nonsense but I can’t imagine anyone in the target teenage audience for this film being much bothered about performance, characterisation or the integrity of the plot.

What they want is spectacle and on that front, amid some ponderous narration from Omar Sharif, this New Zealand-shot film delivers.

I’ve always reckoned a film is worth the money if it shows you something you haven’t seen before in a good way – a gee whizz moment. There are enough of them even in this highly derivative adventure to make it worth the price of a ticket.