2012 - Roland Emmerich - 2009

The Feel Good Comedy of the Year!

Story: The movie starts in 2009 Platt and Ejofor informing a president of these United States who is curiously not Barack Obama in this world (weird... but at least he's a messianic black man right? Between this and Deep Impact, Hollywood is definitely telling America that we should be thankful to get through the Obama presidency in one piece, because the message is clearly the if you have a black president the world will try to kill you... not the political world... THE EARTH ITSELF WILL TURN ON YOU!!! If you liked that joke, it was mine. If you thought it was racist and offense, then my roommate Joseph came up with it.) that the apocalypse is about to begin and that like Noah, we need to build an ark.

Speaking of Noah's, did anyone else notice that Jon Cusack's son was named Noah? What do you mean it's not symbolic? Although I can't come up with any reason why the digital television conversion didn't happen in this universe, as there are analog TV's without converter boxes functioning. Maybe there's some hidden symbolism there that I'm not getting.

Some complaints with the storyline [SPOILER ALERT]: If the tectonic plates decided to shift and the continental US began to sink, then who thought that landing in Hawaii to refuel would be a good idea? I'm not an expert and even I recognize the stupidity of that idea. Then we get the laziest deus ex machina in the form of the plane crashing from lack of fuel conveniently in China because of the shifting poles.

[SPOILERS ALERT CONCLUDED, YOU MAY OPEN YOUR EYES NOW]

All in all the story gets a B.

Acting: There really are some good performances here. Danny Glover does an awesome not Obamessiah president. Woody Harrelson surprised me by even being in this movie and doing crazy in a way that only Woody can do. I'm glad to see Oliver Platt in something big again, even if he is the “bad” guy (although if I had been in his shoes, I wouldn't have opened those doors either!) It's good to see John Billingsley on something other than Star Trek: Enterprise. Stephen McHattie was only on screen for a few scenes but completely stole those scenes. Oh, and the nuclear family plus the step dad aren't bad either. The acting department gets a solid A.

Direction: Roland Emmerich gets a lot of crap for his movies and I'm not sure why (except for Godzilla and to certain extent The Day After Tomorrow which I thought were lesser movies of his) but, as my friend Andrew pointed out in my original review of this movie, the fact that Emmerich keeps dealing with apocalyptic subject matter does technically make him an auteur. Overal, there are some scenes where the audience really has to suspend their disbelief, like when Jon Cusack outruns a volcanic eruption and catches up with a plane on foot, but they work from a suspense point of view. However, I do have to fault Emmerich for a few of the plane take off scenes feeling identical to the one that just preceded it in the scene before. Of course, the band Austrian Death Machine might say, “Of course they look and feel the same, because they all look BRUUUUUTAAAAAL!” B

Visuals: If you haven't watch the Escapist's Movie Bob's review of this movie, I recommend you do so. He assessed the visuals in this movie in a far superior way than I ever could, so I'm not even going to try. Suffice to say, the visuals get an A.

Overall: I laughed all the way through. . . and yes, I know this means that I should probably be seeking therapy. In my defense, everyone in my party was laughing too, so if there's something wrong with me, my friends have it too. This movie is close to A range, but really is more in the realm of B because of dumb things that drag it down, but regardless you should see this movie!


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