Movie Review: 2012
Snuck out to see the movie 2012 on Friday the 13th. Hey, it seemed appropriate at the time.
Highly publicized for months if not a year or so, 2012 is Roland Emmerich’s latest “the world’s going to end, we are all going to die unless you happen to be rich and/or popular” flick.
The Plot
The plot of the movie is not really a great deal of a surprise. We pick up on screen in 2009 with a seismic event in India. It’s explained that massive solar flares have caused an exponential rise in the neutrinos passing through the planet. In their words, “think of it like cooking the Earth in a microwave”. Through a well sequenced set of scenes, we flash forward to see the world making preparations for the inevitable end.
We also follow along with a moderately unsuccessful author, Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) trying to keep his family together despite his separation from wife (Amanda Peet). Bingo, Bango, Bongo, within a few more scenes, we find ourselves on what seemed like a whirlwind two hours+ of Wylie Coyote chase scenes with the main characters playing the Roadrunner.
Casting and acting
I should probably learn to wait 24 hours before posting my thoughts on a movie that I see in the theater, but I don’t seem to share the concerns of other reviewers. It’s my unofficial and initial opinion however that the movie was well cast (and heavily laden with Hollywood stars) who each did an admirable job of playing various characters who were literally scared bleepless and running for their lives.
Of special note in my book is Woody Harrelson’s portrayal of the hippy dippy conspiracy nut “Charlie Frost”.
Visual Effects
A leisurely flight through downtown Los Angeles (2012)
In a word, stunning. In two words, absolutely overwhelming. We all know going in that the biggest part of this movie is going to be the Visual Effects, and I won’t hesitate to tell you that some of them look a little cheesy. I keep hearing that “in 5 years we won’t even need actors” but that’s simply not going to happen any time soon.
On the other hand, unlike movies such as “The Day After Tomorrow” (Also — coincidentally — a Roland Emmerich production) the computer generated scenes (with few exceptions) were actually believable.
I noted the use of a blue screen (or are they using green now?) in three scenes. In the interest of preserving the movie and not spoiling it, I won’t share them here, but unless you’re going to see the movie just to pedantically kvetch about such details, those few scenes don’t prove to be that much of a distraction.
(on a personal note, I was more distracted by the rude moron in front of me as well as her boyfriend who wouldn’t shut up during the whole movie than I was by anything on the screen)
My hastily-written yet sleep-deprived opinion
As I may have mentioned before, at $9.00 to $15.00 these days for a movie ticket, I find it difficult to suggest that ANYONE pay to go see a film unless it’s a matinee. This is perhaps an exception to the rule. Despite the often-talked about reservations about the holes in the plot and the intentional omission of certain scenes and “end of the world” mojo, this was a fun film to experience on the big screen.
Is it the best movie ever? Not even close. There are more holes in the plot and the physics behind some scenes than you could ever hope to fill, so just throw the silly bucket in the water and enjoy the swim. After all, 2012 is a Roland Emmerich “end of the world” movie. Please tell me you aren’t going to see it for it’s meaningful subtext. You’ll go to see it because you wanna see crap “get blowed up” and at that, Emmerich is a master.
Besides, it’ll make a fantastic Blu-Ray on the 60″ Sony next Christmas.
The Good
- It’s a great action movie once it gets rolling
- The acting and scenery are great
- While taking on a huge, weighty subject, it’s not 1/100th as preachy as Emmerich’s earlier efforts to teach us all how much we suck as human beings. I speak, of course, of what I commonly refer to as “The Greenpeace meets PETA” movie, “The Day After Tomorrow”. Instead of “the world’s going to end, but we stupid humans could fix it”, 2012 comes across very much like a judgment day flick where we’re all fubar regardless of whether or not we choose to recycle.
The Bad
- At 2 hours and 38 minutes, it’s a bit long but nowhere near as painful as sitting through the “3000 hours” that the last Lord of the Rings movie seemed to have lasted.
- There seemed to be an intentional decision to show the utter destruction of the core of all the major religions, EXCEPT the politically incorrect ideas of destroying anything Islamic or something central to world politics such as the Wailing Wall. In interviews, Emmerich is quoted as saying in essence that they avoided such targets on screen out of “fear of a fatwa“. With respect, this seems exceptionally chicken {bleep}. Either it’s the end of the world, or it isn’t.
The Trailer
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Category: Featured Articles, Movies
Tags: 2012, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Columbia Pictures, Danny Glover, Day After Tomorrow, Earth, end of the world, Film, john cusack, movie, Movies, Oliver Platt, review, Roland Emmerich, Thandie Newton, Thomas McCarthy, Woody Harrelson
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For the record, I stand by my original review, but a friend of mine — with whom I tend to agree about 80% of the time — saw it on Sunday and literally came out of the theater groaning, bitching, and moaning about "well that's 3 hours of my life lost forever"… Seems he latched onto one preachy aspect of the last 10 minutes of the movie and let that ruin the entire movie for him.
To that end, I can only add to the point I lightly touched on in my review. That point being that *if* you walk into a theater absolutely convinced that you're about to see the worst movie ever made, that's exactly what you'll get.
On the other hand, if you walk into the theater with an open mind, you might actually enjoy the movie you "wasted 10 bucks" to go see.
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As the friend in question, allow me to clarify… that was but one preachy aspect of the film. I would also add that Emerich appears to have reused some visuals (need to check professional reviews to be sure) on both land and sea. I do agree that there were some fantastic visuals and great actors in the film but the whole feature seemed to be rather heavy handed in my opinion. To be honest, I did not go into the film prepared to dislike it. I was actually hoping it would be something to hold my attention, not make me laugh (frequently). However, after watching the magic limousine and even more magical twin engine piper survive road loss and dust clouds that would have easily killed their real world brethren, I'm not sure even the mighty Coleridge could have suspended disbelief! Emmerich has easily won the weekend box office draw but I will be most curious to see what kind of "legs" this film has. To each their own, on this one, I think the professional critics hit the mark. I own the fact that I both wanted to see and paid to see this film so I have no one but myself to blame.
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Well, I was TRYING to be somewhat anonymous, but ok…
In regards to "need to check professional reviews", why? Your own opinion should be sufficient, unless you simply truly detest the film enough that you MUST go out of the way and pick it apart further.
It's an action flick with what I would have to term "epic" visual effects. That's all it's supposed to be.
The visuals were good, and it kept a good sense of humor going which kept it from being too absolutely bleak and depressing (as I suppose the end of the world will be).
BTW, it's *MUCH* better than "The Day After Tomorrow" (TDAT) on the level of preachy (at least we didn't cause the end of the world this time, unlike TDAT which was a 2 hour advertisement for Greenpeace). If you truly believe it's as bad as TDAT on the scale of preachy, I honestly recommend that you go back and watch TDAT again as a refresher in bad plot and graphics.
I even fully admitted in my review that the plot was full of holes and most of the physics were completely moronic.
Even *I* understand the airflow around the wing of an aircraft to know that almost none of the flying scenes were physically possible, but c'mon Lee. It wasn't any worse than Mission Impossible's helicopter down a tunnel scene, or pretty much the entire last John McClain (Diehard) flick.
With a great deal of respect intended, I still believe you went in expecting a different, more serious movie than 2012 was ever intended to be, but I digress. Or rather I agree to disagree on this one.
2012 is supposed to be an "adventure ride", not an expose/mockumentary that takes itself seriously. It was just on a much larger "Wyle Coyote scale" than most adventure flicks, which I tend to enjoy. I also enjoyed the first "Final Destination" flick (even though I *hate* horror movies) for pretty much the same reason.
You sure you don't want a job counterpointing my reviews? Could be fun.
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Actually I apparently need to retract my statement about "reuse" of film footage. Upon checking professional critic reviews, I could not find such. I thought at least one scene with the cruise ship at sea (nearing the tidal wave) and one city flooding scene were reused from other Emmerich films but I was wrong. I guess I have just "seen it before" so mistakenly presumed that Roland had sought to save some $$ to pay for the cast.
I have no issue that the film was intended to be an adventure ride but it's one that left me laughing because it became just too implausible (to me). So yeah, we will have to agree to disagree.
If it makes you feel any better, I did find the idea of the "super arc" ships to be kind of interesting. So there, one aspect of the film that I did like.
Regards,
Lee
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Great review. I'm still on the fence about seeing it, as there are way too many other movies that would come ahead of it before I see 2012, but it is officially up for consideration.
BTW, LOVE the new site. I updated the links on the ShamelessTV site. I love the look and feel. It's very multipurpose.
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Thanks K. I truly appreciate it.
In regards to the movie, it's apparent that I'm alone amongst friends in my ability to suspend the laws of physics. If you're willing to sit back and just enjoy it as an adventure movie, then you'll enjoy it. If you get caught up in the technicals, then probably not. It was fun to watch California fall off into the ocean though, so I'm ok with it.
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