Very well executed

Please don't spend money on this.

Brilliant and touching

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

AO: THE LAST HUNTER is the latest in a line of prehistoric epics. These films seemed to originate with the cheesy back-projected movies of the 1940s before Hammer had a mini resurgence of them in the 1960s with ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. and its follow-ups. They were back in the 1980s with the likes of the influential QUEST FOR FIRE, but since then the genre has been a little quiet.This film is French and unsurprisingly for the French it plays out as a love story for the most part. The hero is a wandering Neanderthal hunter who meets up with a woman who just so happens to be a Homo Sapien. The two fall in love, but not before the surprisingly modern plot elements play out. And that's the main problem with AO: it feels very modern in places, particularly with a modern-language voice over narration which really feels out of place, and the usual gender issues which would play out on a modern romantic comedy.As a film, this does have a fair few strengths. The visual look is strong with fine cinematography bringing to life the snowbound terrain. The effects are strong and the look of the Neanderthals is an authentic one. There are some truly exciting moments, like the polar bear fight. It's so unfortunate, then, that most of the running time is wasted with romantic nonsense, when the director had the change to make something so much more profound.

AO, The Last Neanderthal is set around the last days of the Neanderthal. Most of them are dying of a strange illness – which actually is a result of increase in global temperature and other climatic changes.Homo-Sapiens is a young species thriving in the new changing climate. Some of them are even killing scattered Neanderthals.Ao (Simon Paul), a Neanderthal, is leader of a small nomadic clan. He is a fierce hunter but together with his clan lives in harmony with surrounding nature and animals. As a rule, Neanderthals only take from nature what can be easily replenished.While Ao is away, a group of Homo-Sapiens murders his entire clan along with his wife and newborn daughter Nea. Ao soon hunts down the killers but can't bring himself to kill them as he isn't a murderer.All alone now, Ao journeys across Europe in search of his home, and brother from whom he was separated in his youth--a tradition where Neanderthal clans exchange their young ones to maintain peace.In his long journey he is given the snub by most he meets due to his ape-like features, and is feared for his colossal strength. He is captured by a Homo-Sapiens tribe where he falls in love with a Homo-Sapien woman, Aki (Aruna Shields) who is pregnant. Aki has been imprisoned by her clan for sacrifice. Ao helps Aki and sees Nia in her newborn.Ao fights for his survival, and to protect his loved ones. With help of Aki's herbology he even overcomes the strange illness. He wants to take the cure to his brother as well and finally reaches home only to realize his brother and entire clan has already been consumed by the illness.Ao realizes he is probably the only one of his kind left. Aki along with her daughter Nea decide to live with Ao, away from other quarreling clans. Ao interacts with nature and animals -- he can understand what 'wind' says and on his wail wild mares come out to feed a hungry human child. He is happy that Neanderthal ways will live-on through Nea.In the end movie puts up a very valid question – How long will Homo-Sapiens survive or are we the end of evolution? It is a low budget movie and at times camera even dwindles a bit (e.g. Ao's fight with Polar bear scene). Though overall camera-work is very commendable and beautifully captures a 30,000 years old Europe. Make artist have done a great job and narration is fair.Despite a promising plot director fails to capture your imagination for long, and acting at best is average.Watch it if you enjoy prehistoric period movies.6.7/10

We are in Europe, 30,000 years before the present. Ao (British actor Simon Sutton, under heavy makeup), is the last of the Neanderthals (he belong to the last surviving clan, and escaped from being massacred along them by a bunch of Homo Sapiens). He is now on the run, and in his flight, he takes as companion a beautiful Homo Sapiens girl named Aki (the beautiful Aruna Shields, a petite who appears in this film topless most of the time) who is fleeing with her baby for some unspecified reason. Against all odds, Ao and Aki would have some sort of interspecies romance (scientists have recently found that there was some interbreeding between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens).Any film that deals with prehistoric man (not that there many of them), is almost inevitably going to have some ridiculous scenes, and this is not exception. But this French movie (by renowned documentary filmmaker Jacques Malaterre) is able to hold our interest. The beautiful wintry locations where this was shot (in France and Bulgaria) certainly helps.

The movie is about last of the Neanderthals, named Ao, who after loosing all his clan ventures back from Siberia to Southern Europe where he came from, to find his brother, Oa.The film is set in pretty much realistic environment and the main guy is believable Neanderthal, though maybe little bit softer at heart, than we imagine Neanderthals would be.We see realistic scene of his ugly Neanderthal wife giving birth to child. Realistic scene of Ao and his mate fighting bear and so on... So we prepare ourself to dig deeper into movie with documentaristic approach, we are going to see prehistoric life of humans and Neanderthals but after Ao's departure from Siberia and his first meeting with humans, the problems start.Giving that the action scenes of the movie aren't all that impressive, the love theme is not so original, there is little drama or tension that can capture your attention, it would be smartest thing to continue the movie in only available way to make it stand-out and original - I mean, making it as realistic, as possible and while it started good in that direction, it failed miserably very soon.Ao meets human girl who has the appearance of top-model, apparently shaves her legs and armpits and is just too damn sexy and unbelievable for all her surrounding people and nature.From that moment we get cliché-driven, stupid love-escape story with predictable end. Good bye realism... good bye exploring of prehistoric life... good bye the most interesting part of the movie.I understand that it's NOT documentary and director has all the right to soften the harsh prehistoric world, but it's just too much.This could be worse if girl couldn't act. Fortunately she can, and does it pretty good actually, but alas, she can't save the movie.This kind of cinematography could have success in only one case, but somewhere along the production director went the very wrong way.Overall, mediocre film