Welcome to the third installment of Guaranteed Razzie Contenders: 2009 Edition! In this special series of reviews and mini-recaps, the Agony Booth staff takes a long, unflinching look at the awful movies that are sure to be nominated for Razzie Awards in 2009!

Check out the other recaps in this series: The Love Guru by Ed Harris, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale by Ryan Lohner!

Roland Emmerich, who helped define the Event Movie back in the '90s, experienced his second big flop with 10,000 B.C. Dropped without ceremony in March of 2008, it may not have been as reviled as his cock-up of the Godzilla property, but that's likely due to nearly no promotion leading up to it, or the fact that no one actually showed up to the theaters to endure two hours of Nintendo 64-level CGI.

10,000 B.C. is of a trend started by 300, wherein ancient history is presented in extreme, or more honestly, EXXXXX-TREME! ways, and also handled much more—well, I don't think I can keep a straight face if I use the word "seriously", so let's just say "humorless". Much like 300 eschewed the camp of Steve Reeves movies to give us an ancient Persian army that was a veritable Cirque Du Soleil of the Damned led by an 8 foot tall black drag queen, so too does 10,000 B.C. try to present a "serious" take on the caveman movie, even refuting that old chestnut of the genre: cavemen coexisting with dinosaurs.

Instead, the movie presents actual "history", but only the sort of ancient history that comes about from forgetting you have a test on paleontology until the night before, and then half-watching Jurassic Park in lieu of actually studying. And then, based on the events in the latter portion of this movie, chasing it with a repeat of Stargate SG-1.

10,000 B.C. does not, of course, avoid the chestnut of cavemen with perfectly white, unbroken teeth, and a level of hygiene stymied only by a few smudges of brown makeup on their faces. This film's cave people, with their robust health and shiny hair, don't call to mind actual ancient peoples so much as the equally hearty pseudo-stone agers from Battlefield Earth.

In short, this is a film that makes Clan of the Cave Bear look like a documentary. It's really not worthy of a full recap, but here's a roundup of "highlights" of that ol' Emmerich magic.

Highlights:

1. It may not have the hero fighting dinosaurs, but the film does have a Chosen One, designated by being the only one in the movie to have blue eyes, naturally. The Chosen One is a little girl, but narration (by Omar Sharif!) and a Wise Elder™ (a "Spirit Woman" in this case) clue us in that her grand destiny is to be the hero's girlfriend. Aim high, guys!

2. The soon-to-be-hero is a little boy named D'Leh, and if you can keep yourself from modifying that into D'oh! or D'im then you are a much stronger person than I.

3. D'Leh's beloved chosen one is named Evolet. No, that's not an energy drink, that's her name. This film cost over a hundred million dollars.

4. D'Leh's father is the leader of the tribe, and carries the all-important White Spear. But at the start of the film, he decides to abandon the village. Seems the woolly mammoths they hunt don't come around as much anymore, and the guy has the nerve to look for other places to hunt so the village won't starve.

As a result, everyone thinks D'Leh's dad is a coward, and D'Leh himself is relegated to outsider status. D'Leh doesn't even get the "I'm a man now" White Spear, because his father instead gives it to his own best friend, a guy named Tic Tic.

5. Actually, if you ask me, the real reason D'Leh's father leaves the village is that he realizes his son's name is D'Leh, and his best friend's name is Tic Tic, and he may only be a caveman, but goddammit, he's got pride.

6. D'Leh grows to manhood, and falls in love with Evolet (now played by Camilla Belle, star of the When a Stranger Calls remake of a couple years back). We first see adult D'Leh hunting a pack of woolly mammoths. He kills the lead mammoth, thereby winning the White Spear and the hand of his woman Evolet.

7. But soon D'Leh's village is pillaged and ransacked, and his girlfriend Ultraviolet is taken away by riders on "four legged demons".

Seriously? "Four legged demons"? They're horses. "Iron bird" is creaky enough primitive talk for airplane. And I do believe no matter how Neolithic you are, you can wrap your mind around the concept of a "horse".

8. D'lite and a few of his friends pursue the marauders. At one point, our hero falls into a tiger pit, already occupied by a saber tooth tiger. He frees the beast and is rewarded by not being eaten. I'm game for a prehistoric version of Calvin and Hobbes if anyone is interested. The tiger's the best actor so far, too.

Okay, the tiger does turn out to kinda be his Hobbes, because D'lorean somehow establishes a rapport with the beast. This impresses some initially hostile villagers, and inspires them to join his quest. Isn't it a good thing this particular village has a prophecy about following one who "speaks to the tiger"? I bet they didn't want to bothered with any questing and adventuring, and came up with the tiger clause thinking no one would ever fulfill it. Joke's on them, I guess.

9. It turns out a lot of other villages have been looted, and also lost many of their people to the "four legged demons". Why are these people being abducted? So they can serve as slave labor to build the Pyramids, of course! Okay, they don't say these are the Pyramids, but the implication is pretty clear.

10. Apparently, woolly mammoths are being used to help build the Pyramids. In the desert. And yet they couldn't have the hero fight a T-Rex at some point? Really?

11. All of this is for the benefit of the "Almighty", by the way. A Not!Pharaoh who considers himself a god. Insert lazy political joke here.

12. In fact, all of this Not!Ancient Egypt business is giving me serious Stargate flashbacks. Which was another Emmerich production that showed his knack for taking a potentially cool premise and squeezing out every drop of mediocrity.

13. Along with having blue eyes, Evolution also has the "mark of the hunter", a scar on her hand that looks like the constellation of Orion. But all this means is that she gets tied up and plays the perfect damsel in distress, while her boyfriend does all the heavy lifting. Great work, everyone. Wow. An angry warlord, realizing he's never going to get to tap that, shoots her with an arrow and seemingly kills her.

14. But all throughout the movie, the Wise Elder™ has been astrally following D'Lovely's quest. The whole point of this is to allow her to become a deus ex machina at the end, and give her life (astrally?) to revive Ebola.

15. Before returning home, a friend of D'Onofrio's father gives him a pouch of seeds. Yes, we are apparently witnessing the beginnings of civilization—not counting the villains' Not!Egypt. Apparently, the agricultural revolution can be traced to a lanky twenty-something refusing to give up his dream of getting laid. I can believe it.

And so ended my mighty quest of watching 10,000 B.C. But as the wicked and the righteous can nary rest for long, so too does The Emmerich toil on, ready to release another monstrosity, this time on no less a subject than the end of the world.

Based on the Mayan calendar running out in 2012, and imaginatively named 2012, the movie is hedging its bets by supposedly being released this year. But looking at its IMDb page, it raises an even bigger metaphysical question than its subject matter. Which is, after 10,000 B.C., how the hell does Roland Emmerich convince actual actors like John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor to be in his movies? Truly, there are mysteries bigger than time itself.

Stay tuned for more Guaranteed Razzie Contenders, coming soon! And check out the other recaps in this series: The Love Guru by Ed Harris, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale by Ryan Lohner!