2012 is the forth disaster movie from German hack Roland Emmerich. Where his first three movies featured massive destruction caused by aliens, a giant monster and global warming, this time he's gone all out and opted for the total destruction of humanity by, er, solar flares. This new destructofest features all the regular pros and cons of his previous efforts...it's simply a question of how this compares to the others. Independence day is rousing bullshit (thats a good thing) and it's fast, funny and very, very fun. The Day After Tomorrow leaves me indifferent while Godzilla is practically unwatchable.
Well, 2012 is second best. The premise is a killer and, unlike The Day After Tomorrow where bad things happen and the world just sits and watches, hope of survival is provided with a crazy, sci-fi, Noahs Ark solution. He's hired some top notch actors including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton and Danny Glover. John Cusack and Woody Harrelson (actor of the year after this and Zombieland, no?) flex their imagination by acting outside of the box.
As usual with an Emmerich flick, the visual effects are incredible. The level of detail in the effects sequences are simply mind-blowing. Even if you hate the movie itself, a blue ray purchase will be essential to rewatch the earthquake scenes in slow motion, again and again. If the Oscar Academy get turned off by the Avatar hype, then this is where I put my money for a Visual Effects Oscar win.
On the downside is the script. It's truly appaling. Co-writer Harald Kloser should stick to scoring movies (nope, scrub that, the musics bland too). It follows the A to Z of disaster movie screen-writing to the letter with no surprises to keep us in suspense. Even worse is the horrendous dialogue which is kept just about bareable thanks to the top drawer acting talent.
This is very enjoyable, preposterous sci-fi nonsense. It's just a damned shame that a better script and a little more fun couldn't have been injected into the mix. Still, at least it's not 10,000 BC.
2 comments:
I really enjoyed this flick. Utter toss of course and about forty minutes too long, but the sheer spectacle and the quality cast lifted up several notches. And those effects. Wow! Yes the script was shit. But to be honest you don't watch films like this for the script. It's disaster porn pure and simple. And this porn gave me a pretty big stiffy.
Nice one, Roland you crazy German bastard you!
I'm sure this is the movie that my dad described as
'no suspense, no action and no sex, but still pretty good'
???????
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