Prehistoric Pap

Credibility, logic and a well constructed plot are not elements you would expect to find in a Roland Emmerich film, the disaster movie specialist behind Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow .

However, you do anticipate plenty of ludicrous, large scale action. His latest – set 12008 years ago, obviously – makes the mistake of being both silly and listless along with it.

Even the mighty impressive digital effects, conjuring up herds of stampeding woolly mammoths, a saber-tooth tiger (with a code of honour) and a made-up cross of giant ostrich and velociraptor can't fully compensate for the rinse & repeat kidnaps, rescues, more kidnaps, infiltrations, alliances and more infiltrations.

It unfolds like Apocalypto meets The Last of the Mohicans meets Jurassic Park, written just for uncritical kids, despite Omar Sharif's pretentious narration trying to sound all grown up.

The lack of well known actors does help a bit, since we don't have to get past the hilarity of seeing Josh Hartnett or Lindsay Lohan going tribal. Instead we are offered two young look-a-likes of them in Steven Strait and Camila Belle, who are prehistoric leads for the Heat generation.

Strait plays D'Leh, the leader of a small rescue team on the trail of baddies who have kidnapped the rest of their dreadlock tribe, including his childhood sweetheart Evolet, to work on the world's biggest building site.

Unusually and rather stupidly for a chase movie, the rescuers catch up with their loved ones within about 10 minutes, only to lose them again thanks to an ill-timed attack by the big bad birds. So begins the array of obstacles which keeps Evolet just out of reach until the budget devouring 'city' climax, where Emmerich does deliver on his unspoken promise of widescreen spectacle.

Your brain may well have switched off before then. If the hokey metaphorical dialogue (where everything relates to either a shape or animal) doesn't wear you down, then there's always the total disregard for geography, passage of time, weather continuity or just any kind of vague reality within its dangers.