2012

The movie 2012 is extremely disappointing. Coming from acclaimed disaster movie auteur Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, one would expect 2012 to take the destruction of the world to a whole new level. The movie hits most of the same notes as Emmerich's other disaster movies, but spends too much of its time on bullshit science and inspirational speechifying; and misses the entire point of its own existance.

The world of science fiction has no shortage of pseudo-inspirational and -scientific rubbish. Your average episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation has better speeches and less offensive technobabble. A person goes to a movie like this to see shit get blown up real good. For about half an hour in the middle of things, 2012 delivers like no movie before it. The sequences of limosines and RVs and airplanes tearing around through giant earthquakes, giant volcanoes and giant dust clouds are fantastic, some of the best you'll ever see. It hits us with 3 of 4 of the elements, but doesn't reach the potential of the 4th.

Much more drama and action could have been milked from the giant-ass tsunamis that roll around the world. Instead we see "computer simluations" of waves and their radi of destruction while the scientists talk about how the earth's crust and magnetic fields are rolling around like the baggy skin over your grandma's knee. The south pole is somewhere in the middle of Wisconsin and China moves 1000 miles west into the Pacific ocean. Gee, that sounds neat, doesn't it? It would have been nice to see, too. The movie needed something more exciting in its final act, but never tops the thrill ride it takes us on in the beginning.

Cost/Benefit analysis: I saw this one on opening night and payed a whole 10 bucks to get in. If I could get a do-over I would wait until it showed up on tv somewhere, watch the chase scenes and be done with it. If you're really into disaster movies, don't pay more than 5 bucks to see this one.

Final notes: the writers missed a fantastic Leathal Weapon call back concerning President Danny Glover and the level of shit he is able to handle at his age.

Awesome random actor: the captain of the ark our heroes end up on is the same guy that played the bartender in The Shining and the head of the Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner. I didn't know he was still alive! Awesome! He didn't look like he'd aged a day! Go him!