2012 delivers the goods
This is what a disaster movie should be. I remember those early ones like Earthquake and The Towering Inferno. You had to sit through the familial histories of about ten different families. And not particularly interesting histories, at that. But the idea was, it personalized the tragedy of the disaster or made you care about the characters or whatever. Well, there’s some of that here, but it’s limited to just a few of the characters, and usually handled in the context of the action. Say whatever else you like about 2012, this much is a great improvement.
This movie is to disaster flicks what Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill are to American folklore. Really Tall Tales! You’ve seen some of the epic destruction in the trailers, but it’s even more grandiose and dramatic in the movie, and there’s a lot of it. And it was pretty well-done. I did, though, have the sense that, if they could have waited another five years, the effects would really have been great. But I always feel that. I would say the effects technology was quite adequate. Not perfect, but nearly there. Special effects of large scale destruction scenes or, say, battles, run into the particularly challenging problem of depicting the people, the victims. Because the scenes were on such large scales--entire skyscrapers tumbling, buildings ripped open, highways torn in half--the people necessarily had to be pretty small. Rendering that convincingly is a bit beyond us at this point. The people often seemed to look a bit like stick people. I remember feeling the same in some of the LOTR battle scenes....
The cast was decent. Cusack makes a good everyman type. Woody Harrelson has a nifty little role as a conspiracy theorist radio host. Chiwetel Ejiofor (whose film career began with Amistad, but who still looks rather young at 35) did his best with an, at times, annoying character. Speaking of annoying, the kids were not so bad and actually grew on me, unlike the usual disaster movie brats of late.
I’ve avoided reading the scientific commentary on this, because I don’t like to know much about a plot going in. One thing I did read was that the central premise, about neutrinos melting the earth’s core, is nonsense. The premise did, however, make the grandiose action possible. There are some very real disasters that could well happen in 2012--the Yellowstone caldera blowing being my greatest worry--but they couldn’t match this disaster. Only a really, really huge asteroid impact could, I’d say. I don’t in anyway take the whole 2012-Mayan thing seriously, but some of these overdue disasters could coincidentally happen in 2012.
Anyway, 2012 did not disappoint. Near total annihilation was never this fun!
This movie is to disaster flicks what Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill are to American folklore. Really Tall Tales! You’ve seen some of the epic destruction in the trailers, but it’s even more grandiose and dramatic in the movie, and there’s a lot of it. And it was pretty well-done. I did, though, have the sense that, if they could have waited another five years, the effects would really have been great. But I always feel that. I would say the effects technology was quite adequate. Not perfect, but nearly there. Special effects of large scale destruction scenes or, say, battles, run into the particularly challenging problem of depicting the people, the victims. Because the scenes were on such large scales--entire skyscrapers tumbling, buildings ripped open, highways torn in half--the people necessarily had to be pretty small. Rendering that convincingly is a bit beyond us at this point. The people often seemed to look a bit like stick people. I remember feeling the same in some of the LOTR battle scenes....
The cast was decent. Cusack makes a good everyman type. Woody Harrelson has a nifty little role as a conspiracy theorist radio host. Chiwetel Ejiofor (whose film career began with Amistad, but who still looks rather young at 35) did his best with an, at times, annoying character. Speaking of annoying, the kids were not so bad and actually grew on me, unlike the usual disaster movie brats of late.
I’ve avoided reading the scientific commentary on this, because I don’t like to know much about a plot going in. One thing I did read was that the central premise, about neutrinos melting the earth’s core, is nonsense. The premise did, however, make the grandiose action possible. There are some very real disasters that could well happen in 2012--the Yellowstone caldera blowing being my greatest worry--but they couldn’t match this disaster. Only a really, really huge asteroid impact could, I’d say. I don’t in anyway take the whole 2012-Mayan thing seriously, but some of these overdue disasters could coincidentally happen in 2012.
Anyway, 2012 did not disappoint. Near total annihilation was never this fun!