Director Roland Emmerich re-imagines our expectations with 2008’s 10,000 BC.
So who is the hero of this movie? He calls himself D’Leh, and he happens to be the cleverest hero in film history. For starters, his name spelled backwards is “held“…which is German for “hero.” And since the bad guys in this movie don’t speak German, they have no clue who they are dealing with!
To further his disguise as a hero, D’Leh’s friends call him “delay“…which is English for “good for nothing.” When D’Leh is ready to embark on a quest to rescue his girlfriend, his spiritual leader actually spits on him as a blessing in disguise. And that is very clever. Officers in World War II used to smear mud on their helmets to disguise their rank. You never know when a sniper is watching.
And even when he is in his “hero mode”, he still looks incapable of doing all of the wonderful things he does. He gets the girl of his dreams by mumbling a few one-liners. And he fulfills a prophecy of pictures painted on a rock, which roughly states that one day “a man and a sabre-toothed tiger shall meet, and both shall walk away, unscathed, or at least well enough to tell the tale another day . . . and also, this man shall then be destined to bring destruction to bad guys everywhere.”
The bad guys never saw it coming. And, truth be told, neither did the good guys, including his girlfriend, his family, friends and neighbors. Nobody saw it coming. Because D’Leh is that good. Seriously.
To see humans go further back in time, check out:
100 Million BC
Army guys! Time travel! Dinosaurs!
Illustrated Movie Review 
that loser didn’t deserve that cute chick!!!! but im glad she didnt end up dead. that’d have sucked.
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way to start cracking the Emmerich code! Of course he would use a backwards german word! Brilliant
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Very nice one indeed mate! Would not have picked up on those clues myself! I completely agree with Aniche – D’Leh so did not deserve that really cute girl! But yeah – he is smooth. For some reason, I actually found the warlord (played by Ben Badra) to be far more interesting as one of the lead male characters in the film. I would have loved to have seen his character develop even more so in the film.
@Ari, you’re so right … Ben Badra’s character is probably the most underrated hero in movie history.
–Rey
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