2012

Tonight I caught a glimpse of the new Roland Emerick disaster film 2012 and I find myself incredibly torn when I try to decide whether or not I actually like it.

My first complaint about this movie is that it was far, far too long. It didn't wholly feel long in the theater because it does a good job of keeping you entertained. There is no part in the movie where you feel as if the story is dragging on and the scenes are pointless. That being said, once we got out of the theater and saw what time it was there was a sudden realization of just how much crap was packed into the movie.

I think the real strength of this movie was the special effects. The way the earth was destroyed by tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes is done very well. I'm not quite sure whether the special effects eclipsed the characters or if the story just wasn't put together well at all, but I found that watching people dangle out of a crumbling skyscraper or crushed by the fallen dome of the Sisteen Chapel really carried no emotional weight. In fact it wasn't until the end of the movie that any true sense of realization as to what happened sets in, but by then it's just too late.

In every disaster movie I've seen there's always at least some emotional connection to the death toll that these horrific events incurs, but this sense of connection to the loss of life is completely missing from this movie. Even at the end, during the "Full House" touchy feely wrap up, there just wasn't any emotional reaction to what had happened.

The entire cast, in fact, seemed entirely disconnected from what was going on. In The Day After Tomorrow there was a real sense of impending danger that the cast shared throughout the movie and I don't know if it was intentional or not but the population at large seemed to be in complete denial as to what was happening.

In the wind up to full blown disaster earthquakes started to rip gaping chasms in the earth, and at one point Amanda Peet's character is in the supermarket when an earthquake opens up a rift fifty feet plus across right through the middle of the lane she happened to be standing in. And miraculously, the news reports that not a single person was injured. And this may be one of the reasons for the disconnect - until you actually see people consumed by explosions or flattened by toppling monuments there's no real sense of danger. I mean seriously, rifts are opening in urban areas and children are playing hop-scotch over the damned thing!

Though, to the movie's credit there is a great scene where John Cusack realizes that things are going horribly wrong and goes for his family. As he arrives at the house incredibly powerful earthquakes begin to topple buildings and he finds his family hiding in the kitchen underneath the table. He calls to them to follow him to the car but, believing it is just a normal earthquake they refuse to move thinking it would be safer to take cover under the table. This is the one time in this movie or any other I can remember for a long time does what every moviegoer is screaming at him to do - he screams at the cowering bunch "Get into the damn car!"

But my biggest complaint about this movie is something that's bothered me about movies since I began watching them.

The earth is ripping apart, volcanoes are springing up out of the ground and tsunamis are destroying entire populations, but every damn character has to have their one moment where they insist on just one moment for some sort of emotional confession or goodbye speech. There is one scene in particular where Danny Glover is kneeling in the chapel and Chiwetel Ejiofor (the assassin from Serenity) comes to bring him to Air Force one so it can depart. Instead of getting on the damned plane he decides it's the perfect time for a heart to heart with the man, despite the cloud of ash bearing down on the white house from the freshly volcanic activity in Yosemite...

Um, excuse me savage forces of nature that are reversing the magnetic poles and rearranging the face of the earth as we know it, but could you hold on just one minute so I can have a heart to heart with this guy I've only known for a few months?

But despite all my gripes this movie really did keep me entertained. Even the parts that just aggravated the hell out of me at least gave Meghan and myself something to make jokes about back and forth.

So if you're bored on a Sunday afternoon and have nothing better to do than burn eight bucks go ahead and give it a shot, but I wouldn't get too worked up about getting to it before the DVD comes out.