2012: The Disaster Movie to End All Disaster Movies
OK, not really…but director Roland Emmerich did say that it would be his last disaster film (should we really believe him? C’mon, this is the guy who gave us the now classic uber-patriotic-alien-disaster-movie, Independence Day. More recently he directed the “Everyman’s version” of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, aka The Day After Tomorrow.)
So, after finally seeing 2012 (thank you Redbox) I can weigh in on all of the deep philosophical questions that people have been wrestling with since this movie debuted. These questions include “Would you risk your only chance of survival to save your purse-sized dog?”, “Is it more ethical to pay 1 billion euros for a place on the doomsday survival boat or stow-away on that same boat?” Oh, and I can’t forget the classic conundrum “Now that it’s the end of the world, should I actually be nice to my ex-wife’s boyfriend or should I try to outlive him and win back her heart?” If you are hoping for anything deeper when you watch 2012 you will probably be disappointed as the movie can’t decide whether it is better to glorify human survival in the face of impossible odds, or make ridiculous one-liners while billions of people are dying due to earthquakes and tsunamis (don’t worry, only CGI people were killed during the making of this film, not actual humans…well, except for that one guy).
Some other thoughts on 2012:
Pros: Woody Harrelson playing a hilarious conspiracy nut who turns out to be right, cheesy Russian accents, airplanes dodging falling buildings
Cons: lame acting in the midst of what should be horrific moments (especially the scene where a huge chasm opens up in the middle of a grocery store), excessive (and probably misused) scientific jargon, the movie’s unfortunate switch from campy to preachy half-way through (although the cut scene’s reveal that the ending was intended to be far more positive and cheesy), an incredibly anti-climactic ending (trust me, it’s bad, you don’t even want to know)
That’s all for now folks :)
If you thought that my review was enlightening or way off the mark please leave a comment below before the world ends.
