FADE IN:

INT. CAVE

It is the STONE AGE, which animators still seem to think means an AGE where the entire landscape is made of STONE.

CGI EMMA STONE

Fuck my life! My lame overprotective dad insists we spend all our time holed up in this boring cave, just because literally every single other person we know was killed horribly by the many terrible dangers that infest the land. Screw this shitty cave! I want to go out there, with the sunshine and the deadly nightmare monsters!

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

I, on the other hand, couldn’t be keener on our stone cage. I’m the most cautious, conservative guy in the world, determined to always play it boring and safe and never try anything strange or new.

CGI EMMA STONE

Wow. It’s like casting Charlie Sheen as a Buddhist monk.

CGI CATHERINE KEENER, CLARK DUKE AND CLORIS LEACHMAN

And we are the down-to-earth mother, nice-but-dumb son, and sassy grandmother. We are entirely one-note characters and never contribute to the story in any way. Also there’s a toddler in there somewhere.

The family go out to get FOOD. They steal an EGG from A LARGE ANGRY BIRD and fight other FORAGERS for it while being pursued by VICIOUS PREDATORS in a FRANTIC CROSS-COUNTRY SPRINT BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL.

CGI EMMA STONE

Yes, my life is SO. FUCKING. BORING.

That night, she sees a mysterious light and leaves the cave to follow it. In a billion-to-one chance, it’s not some kind of MAN-EATING LIGHT MONSTER, but in fact a torch-wielding RYAN REYNOLDS.

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

I’m a stone age inventor. Look, I invented pants, and shoes, and masks, and belts, but not shirts because I’m Ryan Reynolds and FUCK SHIRTS.

CGI EMMA STONE

My first instinct is to be wary of you. Enjoy it while it lasts, in a second we’ll be totally smitten with each other and our relationship will just park there for the rest of the movie.

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

Listen, the world is about to end. A completely unexplained series of earthquakes and explosions will soon start flaring up whenever they’re needed to move the plot along. I have no idea how I know this.

CGI EMMA STONE

I’d flee with you and all, but unless this cataclysm of yours can convince my chickenshit dad to leave his precious cave-

THE CAVE is suddenly SMUSHED by a random EARTHQUAKE.

CGI EMMA STONE

Wow, you weren’t kidding.

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

Fuck! And now some owl cat monster has our family cornered by a cliff! We have to either get past the monster, which is a thing we successfully did just earlier in the movie, or jump off the cliff.

CGI EMMA STONE

JUMP off the CLIFF? Well we could pick up some boulders and bludgeon ourselves over the head too, as long as we’re considering options that’d DEFINITELY KILL US.

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

I’m sick of your contrary attitude, young lady! If I say we’re jumping off a cliff, you’ll jump off a cliff and you’ll like it!

They JUMP OFF THE CLIFF. They fall about FIVE HUNDRED FEET but survive by landing safely on THE GROUND.

CGI EMMA STONE

Would you look at that, a lush jungle was just down the way from our crappy cave this whole time! I bet this place is much more hospitable than the death zone we’ve been stuck in, thus validating the film’s message that curiosity and a sense of adventure are-

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

Yes yes, we can get into that after we decide whether to stay in the jungle and get eaten by the sabre-toothed tiger, or go out onto the plains and get eaten by the piranha birds.

CGI EMMA STONE

...Ah. Oh look, the backwards-beaked piranha birds just skeletonized a land whale. Silly me, somehow I came under the impression this movie was set in the stone age, not on the planet Frobnax.

The PIRANHA BIRDS START ATTACKING! In a crazily inefficient spiral manoeuvre which conveniently gives the family time to do something about it!

CGI EMMA STONE

Whuh oh! Better call Ryan to come save us!

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

Uh, Ryan went off in a different direction to us hours ago. Is your plan really to stand right out in the open making loud noises on the off chance that he happens to be near enough that in the next twenty seconds he can-

RYAN SHOWS UP and SAVES EVERYBODY.

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

Thus begins the phase of the movie I like to call “Perfect Ryan Solves Everything and Has No Flaws and Is Perfect”. Let’s all take refuge from the cataclysm in that mountain way over there!

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

That big evil thing that looks like two Mount Dooms stuck together? Yeah, surely the safest place to be during an earthquake is perched on a towering, precarious wall of rock.

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

It’s still the best plan we’ve got, so let’s go. Now, having been nearly eaten several times since leaving your cave, I think you’ll appreciate that during this trip we’ll have to move quickly and very quietly, staying in cover as best we can and keeping an eye out for predators.

Instead they TRUDGE SLOWLY across an OPEN PLAIN while continually YELLING AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS, while nothing attacks them whatsoever.

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

Huh. I guess the monsters around here show up on the same plot-related basis as the earthquakes.

CGI EMMA STONE

Ryan, I’m worried. The way this movie started I was sure I was supposed to be a strong independent protagonist, but it’s been ages since I did anything other than follow your direct instructions. I’m starting to seem like another part of the vague family-shaped blob you and Dad are lugging around.

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

Well, maybe if we all split up you’d have an opportunity to distinguish yourself somehow.

CGI EMMA STONE

There is no plausible reason for us to do that.

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

Uh, cataclysm, little help?

The ground literally PICKS THEM ALL UP and DEPOSITS THEM INTO DIFFERENT PARTS OF A LABYRINTH.

CGI CATHERINE KEENER AND CLORIS LEACHMAN

Oh look, while navigating this place we’ve managed to invent the concept of camouflage!

CGI CLARK DUKE

And I’ve gone and domesticated a proto-dog!

CGI EMMA STONE

And I immediately met back up with Ryan and he gave me some flowers!

(pause)

I really am a useless fucking character, aren’t I.

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

Kinda, but isn’t our blossoming romance sweet at least?

CGI EMMA STONE

Eh. It kind of puts a dent in any romantic subplot if the audience is painfully aware that we’re seemingly the only viable mates for each other in a million-mile radius.

They all manage to get out of the labyrinth.

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

Huh, it’s weird that this whole time I’ve been obsessively saying we need to find a new cave to live in, but it didn’t occur to me that we were just in a big roomy cave with fresh water and animals to hunt and pretty much everything we could ever need.

CGI EMMA STONE

Yeah well, your whole cave plan sucks balls compared to Ryan’s mountain-climbing plan!

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

Seriously, is this movie really under the impression that Ryan’s idea is any less idiotic than mine? I mean, say we get onto the mountain, what then? What’s our next move?

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

We’re gonna jump on the sun and ride it to tomorrow!

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

...Oh dear God he means that literally. That’s not even a coherent sentence, but it’s his actual plan. This man is INSANE, why are we LISTENING TO HIM.

CGI EMMA STONE

He’s a brilliant inventor, though! He made us shoes and umbrellas!

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

He made you a pair of comfortable enclosed shoes, but for me he just strapped a pair of fish to my feet! Doesn’t that seem just a touch deranged to you?

CGI EMMA STONE

Ah shut up. You might have kept our family safe for our entire lives, but Ryan’s kept us safe for the past two days so we’re transfering all our loyalty to him so NYEH!

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

Well, uh, I can invent stuff too!

(invents, terribly)

Look! Look! Opaque sunglasses! A wheel that crushes you! Watch as I throw myself recklessly into every lousy, half-baked project I can get my hands on, in a desperate attempt to stay relevant!!

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

Okay, NOW you’re acting like Nicolas Cage.

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

RAAHHH DIE INTERLOPER!!!

NICOLAS tackles RYAN over several CLIFFS and into a pit of TAR.

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

Crap, tar! We’re doomed!

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

Dude, we’re sinking at about one Planck length per hour. Even assuming my family don’t come after us for some inexplicable reason, you could send your living belt off to fetch them and-

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

DOOOOOMED!!! This is just how my parents died. As they sank, you know what they said to me?

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

Um, “get us a rope, a branch, something for fuck’s sake”?

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

They told me not to be timid or cautious. That I should go out there and LIVE.

(pause)

Then they stopped living. Because they hadn’t been cautious enough.

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

For some reason this story of yet more people being killed by our hostile environment makes me rethink my entire safety-first worldview. Let’s get out of this tar and go through with your moronic sun-flying plan!

They GET OUT OF THE TAR via a method that is COMPLETELY UNMOCKABLE by virtue of being the most DELIBERATELY RIDICULOUS THING ever put in a feature film ever. Well played, movie. Well played.

EXT. MOUNTAIN

The family CLIMB THE MOUNTAIN, or rather, they WALK up the SMOOTH, GENTLE PATH that for some reason runs STRAIGHT UP THE MIDDLE OF THE MOUNTAIN.

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

And look, we’ve emerged on a nice flat plateau from which we can casually walk to safety. This is all absurdly convenient. I guess this movie is without a climax, unless-

The CATACLYSM hurriedly tears a LAVA-FILLED GORGE right across their path.

CGI RYAN REYNOLDS

Of course.

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

It’s okay, I can just individually hurl you across the gorge, then I’ll hurl myself across and - oh wait that won’t work. Ah well, heroic self-sacrifice time!

NICOLAS saves everybody in what is an honest-to-God attempt at a tearful, moving scene about a caveman lobbing family members over a lava pit.

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

What a bold and dramatically satisfying close to my character arc! I took my role as family protector to its logical conclusion, while at the same time accepting my obsolescence and symbolically freeing my family from... um, why is the camera still on me? Guys, killing me off is bold, but turning this thing into a straight-up snuff film is going a bit too far.

(pause)

...Oh man, I’m going to survive, aren’t I. By what I have to assume will be ridiculous means. Fine, forget everything I just said and let’s get this thing over with.

He builds a FLYING MACHINE by essentially GLUING A BUNCH OF BIRDS TOGETHER and THREATENING TO SET THEM ON FIRE.

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

Heh, good thing the ASPCA doesn’t exist yet!

He flies over to meet the others. The ENTIRE WORLD EXPLODES INTO CINDERS up as far as the gorge, beyond which nothing even gets DUSTY.

CGI NICOLAS CAGE

All right, we’re safe now, arbitrarily! Now let’s go and live our new and improved lives, as a modern stone-age family who use comical prehistoric versions of current-day tools and have a sabre-toothed cat as a pet and holy CRAP how did I get this far before seeing that comparison.

They go off in search of new adventures, then presumably two days later get GRUESOMELY KILLED by one of the HORRIBLE MONSTERS that inhabit this AWFUL, VICIOUS HELLSCAPE.

END.