Roland Emmerich hates the planet. 2012 marks the third time he has tried to destroy the earth and this time he pretty much succeeds.
Now I LOVE me some end of the world destruction movie and I had a good time at this movie but it is one of those films that I consider a bi-polar picture.
When I say bi-polar what I mean is that I watch a movie like this with 2 brains. On the one side is the movie lover in me that enjoys a good popcorn movie for what it is - mindless fun; on the other side though is my intellect that screams out to be heard whenever something happens in a movie that just strikes me as wrong. Well, during 2012 the intellectual side was going CRAZY!
The movie is enjoyable and I think that if you can disconnect your brain for the 2:40 running time then you will have fun at this movie but here are my problems with it. Your experience will probably vary.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
1) The most charismatic character in film is killed off much too early.
2) Toward the end of the film when one of the main group dies it is sort of shrugged off by the other characters in the group. "Where is so and so?" "He didn't make it." "Oh noez! Well I love you so let's keep going" Ummmm what???? Really? I felt terrible for the poor guy that his death was just a footnote in a conversation.
3) I am a Christian and as such I have certain beliefs and I put my faith into God and his teachings (i.e. the Bible). Now in the Bible, in the very beginning of the Bible, seriously I don't think it is more than 30 pages into the book, God tells Noah that he is going to destroy the earth with a flood (he was the original Roland Emmerich you see). Well he sticks to his word and floods the earth and the only survivors are those that Noah was able to put on his ark.
(At this point I understand that you that are non-Christian are probably rolling your eyes but I believe this so it is relevant to my point so bear with me.)
Anyway after Noah and his flock find dry land (Waterworld anyone?) God creates a rainbow as a covenant to man that he will - and this is important - NEVER AGAIN FLOOD THE WORLD!!!
So as you can see when the movie starts coming to an end and the world is flooded I am screaming on the inside because in my rational and faith based side of my mind I am screaming that THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!!! I feel like Kathy Bates from Misery screaming that 'He never got out of the COCK-A-DOODIE CAR! If you don't understand the reference I suggest that you go watch Misery right now as it is one of the best movie adaptations from my favorite author of all time. The best adaptation being the Shawshank Redemption. But I digress.
So the giant flood pulled me right out of the movie and I kind of watched the rest of it with my arms folded but at that point it was almost over anyway so it wasn't too bad.
The last thing I have to say about this is certain to ruffle feathers and I apologize in advance but I have to get it off of my chest. As probably everyone out there knows there is a certain religion in this and many other countries that does not want to have it's leader shown or spoken about or defamed in any way. These people will actually threaten to kill you if you do any of these things and if they can get to you they WILL kill you. The reason I even bring this up is that in the film there are a couple scenes of religious icons being destroyed - the statue of Jesus overlooking Rio De Janeiro and the entirety of the Vatican. I have no problem with this. It's a movie after all. The problem that I have is that there is a scene of this group of people praying and facing their holy place but it never shows that place being destroyed. I know this is splitting hairs but it feels like the producers of the film did not want to offend and incur the wrath of this group by showing their holy place being destroyed. Why? Why is it okay to show other sites that are holy to one group being destroyed and not this other site? The answer is simple. Hollywood is afraid of this group. I have the solution for them though instead of trying to placate these people and not offend their whacked out sensibilities (this is my opinion) why doesn't Hollywood ,and it would be nice if we could all do this, just ignore them. Pretend like they don't exist. Instead of trying to only portray them in a positive, non-offensive light why not just not show them at all. Wouldn't that make them happier? I don't know if that would or even could work but I am tired of watching everyone bow to the will of this one group of people who worship someone you cannot even mention. EUREKA! We can just refer to them as the deatheaters since they follow the teachings of "He who cannot be named". Yeah that's right I just equated the extremists in the east to characters created by J.K. Rowling.
Argh!!!
2012. Go see it.
