The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986)

True, this isn't the most splendid picture you'll ever see. The scenario is a bit sketchy, it all goes a bit too fast to take the whole span of the story seriously, the make-up of the Neanderthals looks shabby etc. Nonetheless, I quite enjoyed watching this film. I just love the feel of prehistoric stories with wide landscapes, clothes in hides, wildness in people and animals, caves, camping fires etc. Next to that, it's always a pleasure to see a young Daryl Hannah especially cloth in hides and with her legs barely covered. Sexy. But I even like the story, even though the book it's based upon could be better brought to the screen. In the book, for instance, you get a much better feel for the depth of difference between Neanderthals and Cro-magnons, which is why you better understand why Ayla has such a hard time in the clan, and why she has constant troubles mainly with Brun. In the movie all of that is not clarified. So I say: if you like the movie but want to dig deeper: read the book.

Prehistoric tale set in Stone Age about cavemen plenty of drama , adventures , thrilling events and speaking a special language and particular primitive movements . At a time in prehistory when Neanderthals shared the Earth with early Homo Sapiens , a band of cave-dwellers travels through uncharted landscapes towards an unknown territory , searching for caves to shelter themselves . During their quest , they encounter and battle various animals as buffalo , lion , wolves and tribesmen in order to survive . Iza (Pamela Reed), Medicine woman of the "Clan of the Cave Bear" meets little Ayla from the "other"'s clan ; the little girl loses her parents , Ayla is taken in by after her own parents are disappeared , tradition would have the clan kill Ayla immediately , but the Medicine women insists on keeping her . Iza as a primitive gamine adopts blond and blue-eyed Ayla , the lost child of the "Others" . As it results out later , she's a bright girl , but has a hard time to keep her place in a clan with different habits . As the scrawny cavegirl named Ayla (a gorgeous primitive babe played by Daryl Hannah) matures into a young woman of spirit and courage , being helped by Creg (James Remar) , she must fight for survival against the jealous bigotry of Broud (Thomas G Waites) , who will one day be clan chief .This interesting film about primitive humans contains drama , emotions , fights and is pretty entertaining . Ponderous and sometimes slow-moving , the picture failed at box office , however , nowadays being better considered . Based on Jean M. Auel's popular novel with screenplay by prestigious John Sayles , there is minimal narration ; subtitles translate the Neanderthal gestures and primitive spoken language . A planned back-to-back sequel never made it into production . Emotive musical score by Alan Silvestri , though composed by synthesizer . Colorful and brilliant cinematography by Jan De Bont , subsequently become filmmaker . The motion picture was well realized by Michael Chapman . Chapman is deemed one of the best cameraman of cinema , he photographed a lot of successes such as ¨Evolution¨ , ¨Primal fear¨, ¨The fugitive¨, ¨Rising sun¨, ¨Ghostbusters II¨, ¨Shoot to kill¨ and masterpieces for Martin Scorsese as ¨Raging Bull¨, ¨Last Walz¨, Taxi driver¨ . He occasionally directed some films as ¨The viking sagas¨, ¨All the right moves¨ and this ¨The clan of bear cave¨.Other films dealing with cavemen are the following : ¨One million B.C. ¨(1940) by Hal Roach with Victor Mature and Carole Landis ; ¨One million years B.C.¨ by Don Chaffey with Rachel Welch and John Richardson ; ¨!0.000 B.C.¨ by Roland Emmerich with Steven Strait and Camilla Belle ; and the best is ¨Quest of fire¨ by Jean Jacques Annaud with Everett McGill and Ron Perlman .

Very Good --------- Inventive 'sign language' (although some viewers may consider this a 'very bad' aspect of the movie)Good ---- Music (but it is a little repetitive), Darryl (needed far more nudity)Bad --- Story pace, Voice over, Brow ridgesVery Bad -------- Teeth, No T-RexNot a bad film, quite enjoyable. Often more like watching a National Geographic doc about some lost tribe. Some intelligent use of sign language - very consistently used and plausible. Apparently, the woman who wrote the book sued the production company because the film bombed and slurred the good name of her novel. It was a cave-man adventure book, for heaven's sake, with hot sex scenes every other chapter. The sort of book you buy at an airport, read on a beach, then leave in a hotel room. If anything, we should be suing her.

I'm in the middle of the 2nd Clan book, Valley of the Horses, enjoying reading the series tremendously, and held off on seeing this film till I was well past the first title.The usual rule seems to hold that if you really love the book, you ain't gonna dig the movie. I wonder, though if it's partly the look of the film, and not just the inability of one genre to capture the best of another genre's take on "the bad old days," complete with thoughts and lots of solitary scenes for the main character.Maybe a really great animated version using the latest technology and some good-old fashioned character building could come a little closer to a strong depiction of the chinless, "flathead" Neanderthals than the comical looking folks with the bad wigs and prosthetic brow ridges that crowd this picture. While I haven't lost my critical faculties reading the books, they've never prompted me to smile or wince so much as this film did.Just a facetious suggestion--I suspect the story is just not one that's good for film adaptation.