2012

[lynn]

Watched 2012 last night. It was pretty funny. A little anti-climactic, since most of the cool fx occur in the first half of the movie. After he's done dodging buildings in a limo and flown through craters and driven around an exploding volcano, you're not as scared for the main character when he gets a little wet. Sufficient characters died inexplicably, I'm not going to tell you what happens to the little doggie because it was what kept my friend in the biggest suspense of the whole movie, and the acting was fairly good. John Cusack is always good to watch, the crazy nutter character was awesome, and there's this absolutely imperative man on the boat who just overacts every second he's on screen and is mesmerising, so much so that they just keep cutting back to him and his mobile face through the entire dramatic final scene and it just made me laugh so much. FX were good, except for one notible scene where they're supposed to be on the back of the ute in the mountains and they look like they're on a sound stage. Chewi, from Serenity fame, is in this movie... can't spell his name but he plays the baddie in Serenity. In this movie he's the one doing inspirational speeches.
The plot was implausible and there was alot of silliness involved, I really laughed so much in the first half I'd almost call it a comedy, but that was more at the implausibility of the situation than the numerous in-jokes, though I liked them. I'd recommend 2012 because it's a lot of fun.

[Gilberto]

Yeah, this movie is just at ridiculous as Independence Day and Day After Tomorrow, with basically the same plot and characters, but it is greatly entertaining. It's got the King Kong problem, though: Too long and not properly paced. The movie's almost 3 hours long, and the act structure is wonky.

In the first act there is the typical "establishing the dilemma" plot, then the introduction of the seemingly hapless protagonist and a fully unnecessary government conspiracy/cover-up subplot, so basically almost nothing happens in the first hour.

The second act is pure payoff: Awesome limo stunt driving and small plane maneuvering amidst a backdrop of the world breaking to pieces. John Cusack's character is definitely the guy to know in a pinch, he springs into action with alarming prowess.

Then the third act is them getting caught in the hydraulics of a Star Blazers style ship for way too long so Chewie can make obvious speeches about humanity's soul.

It's trying to pack everything from every disaster flick into one movie, with mixed results. It's mostly good fun and definitely worth watching, even though it's completely senseless.

Plus it assumes a much higher quality of cell phone reception than you are likely to get in the real apocalypse.

[lynn]

Yes, I noticed the cell phone reception thing. The whole world has just been apocalypsed by the sun but the phone is still working? Also, they have perfect satellite coverage for every military bit of info there, but anyone with even the smallest amount of knowledge of solar disturbances knows that the satellites would be the first things to go.
But it's not true that it invovles every sort of disaster movie; we noticed a severe lack of lightening. There wasn't enough storms and stuff, just loads of earthquake and explosion and waves. I wanted a hurricane or something. That's just a personal preference.

[Gilberto]

That's true, it's mostly just earthquakes and floods. If solar radiation were boiling the Earth's core, I think there would be more going on than that. I also think that if the magnetic poles shift overnight, that's also going to interfere with cell phone reception.

[lynn]

the magnetic pole shift is just a side-note, you could do a whole movie where the poles shift overnight and the same stuff happens but in this movie it's just something that goes on. If the poles are shifting how did they navigate the plane to China? It seemed terribly convenient when their plane broke and the continent had just happened to have shifted beneath them so they landed in the right spot.
Actually this is the most fun part of these movies; being all superior and pointing out all the inconsistencies. Makes you feel clever.

[Gilberto]

Yeah, but they take the fun out it by making it too easy. Feels like heckling at the Special Olympics.

The magnetic poles shifting would be a huge deal. They just kind of put it in a throw away line, but a lot of stuff would stop working if the poles shifted. Most importantly, as you mentioned, compasses. Well, technically the compasses would still work, just not the maps.

[lynn]

Maps don't work if the continents are shifting under you as well. But anyway, it doesn't matter when the continents conveniently move under you.

[Gilberto]

Who needs maps when the Earth's rotation shifts so that the world actually does revolve around you?

[lynn]

John Cusack is awesome in that movie, he's a total action hero and the world revolves around him. I'm surprised they didn't have a larger discussion of survival of the fittest or fate or something

[Gilberto]

There was more than enough sanctimonious monologuing to go around already. God forbid we form a thought on the subject for ourselves.

[lynn]

That's always the worst part of these movies.

[Gilberto]

No doubt

[lynn]

I'm watching this again on dvd, with commentary, and it's so funny, in the big scene where they're driving through the streets and the whole place is collapsing around them, the director is talking about how they had to lose some great moments because it almost looked like it was too much, people might not believe in it. There was too many cars falling out of the building, people weren't believe it, so they had to cut some cool bits.
Really?