Walking with Cavemen (2003) Review

  Walking With Prehistoric Life Marathon (Part 4)

 

Walking with Cavemen (2003) Review

Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Beasts set the bar pretty high, so when I saw Walking with Cavemen, I had pretty high expectations, which it didn’t even come close to meeting. Despite being branded as part of the Walking With… franchise, none of the same creators worked on it, and while it’s not a bad series per say, it's more flawed than what came before. 

Several species of hominids (early upright apes) are portrayed, beginning with Australopithecus afarensis, which was already extensively shown in Walking with Beasts. This time, all hominids are depicted by human actors in suits and prosthetics, which varies in levels of believability and quality. I appreciate that they tried to do all of it in camera as much as possible, but for the more ancient species, it’s hard to accept as realistic. Afarensis is the depiction that suffers the most, because in reality the species was much shorter, smaller, and less upright than modern humans. When compared to how they looked and behaved in Beasts, it really feels inferior, even if the practical effects are generally more appealing than the cgi. 

As the series progresses, though, it gets better. The second episode shows three different species—the gorilla-like boisei, chimpanzee-like rudolfensis, and opportunistic habilis—with the reveal of which ones will go extinct and which one will eventually evolve into Homo sapiens kept a mystery until the end. It’s a clever way to make people keep watching, even if it does seem pretty obvious long before the reveal. It’s not until the next time period that the show really picks up, with Homo ergaster given the focus, in the first truly early-human-like depiction that works perfectly. Next we get briefer glimpses at Homo erectus and the gigantic Gigantopithecus in Asia, as well as heidelbergensis in Britain, with this part of the series being the fastest-paced, before getting a full look at Neanderthals to bring the series to a close.   

The narration isn’t done by Kenneth Branagh, but is still good, and the music fits the program extremely well, with a theme I find as memorable as any of the others from the Walking With… franchise. The cinematography and direction is where you can really tell this program wasn’t by the same team behind the other programs; there are odd shot choices and it’s more stylized, but not often in a beneficial way. The special effects are decent, though never as spectacular as Dinosaurs or Beasts. It’s not a criticism, though, because the series is focused primarily on hominids, instead of several different creatures, or an entire ecosystem. Still, there are brief moments when creatures from Beasts appear, rendered again in cgi, and the shots look as good as they did in Beasts, with the same models used for the Megaloceras and Mammoth, among others. 

When I think back on this series, one of the main things I can’t help but be reminded of are all the unintentionally hilarious moments. In the Australopithecus segment, a battle for dominance between two males prompts one of the males to take a baby from Lucy, the main character of the episode (named after the famous fossil), and he runs off holding it by one dangling leg. The baby is clearly rubber, and jiggles about as the male runs. Earlier in the episode, the troop’s alpha male is killed by a crocodile, but the violence is kept mostly off-screen. Both moments just come off as funny instead of shocking, and this happens many other times, perhaps because it’s clearly actors in suits. 

I can’t name every little funny moment, but here are a few more. Homo habilis and rudolfensis fight over the remains of a carcass, then after the habilis win, an African lion pounces on one of them, grabbing him by the throat and running off, the limp carcass flailing as it does so. Again, supposed to be shocking, but looks hilarious. A Homo erectus picks up a tarantula and eats it, but it oozes this unrealistic green slime for some reason. One hilarious thing that happens intentionally is with the Neanderthals, when one of them starts choking on some meat. It’s explained earlier that they can recover from serious trauma. Another Neanderthal goes up behind the one that’s choking and whacks him on the back as hard as she can, making him spit out the meat. Then, all the other Neanderthals just laugh. It’s silly, but it’s supposed to be. 

Walking with Cavemen is a smaller-scale series with less-convincing production values than previous Walking With… installments and isn’t as re-watchable or as consistent throughout, but it’s still mostly well-paced, engaging, and some of the recreations are quite well done. Overall, I’d say it’s just barely worthy of being included as part of the franchise, even if it’s technically more of a spin-off.