2012 [OT]

[MissEcho]

I rarely if ever make OT posts, however having just returned from the cinema where I saw 2012 I figured I would make one.

For those of you into end of the world, high special effect type movies I would recommend you go see this flick for some of the best end of the world effects you are ever likely to see.

I rarely go to the cinema (maybe once a yr or so, I normally wait til the dvd comes out) however, this movie is a MUST to see on the big screen. I think I can state with certainty that everyone in the theatre sat on the edge of their seats for pretty much the whole thing.

Really well done as long as you just want to be entertained, some good one liners and funny bits, and of course nothing that is in any way high brow of course!

The effects are stunning. Would have to say it beats all other movies I have ever seen in this genre by a LONG LONG way. Plus, you gotta LOVE that Cusack dude!

 

[five oclock]

I have been waiting to see this movie for a very long time Thanks for the review

I cant wait. Going to see it tonight

 

[siyeng0]

Ooh, I get to write a review! I've never reviewed anything before.

I saw it the other day too.

What a big, stupid, ridiculous, amazing, magnificently terrible movie. It was dreadful. Dreadful! It was probably the worst movie I have ever seen - in a good way.

The characters were so boring that I cheered every time one of them bit it; the "plot", as it were, was only shoved in to provide three seconds of dragging, unconvincing, excruciatingly uninteresting drama to slow down the endless march of destruction - a little like tying a wheel of cheese to the back of a runaway train in order to slow it down; the director/screen-writer was obviously revelling in the fact that he'd just implicitly murdered six billion people and reduced the entire planet to ash, and yet with all the carnage there was barely a drop of blood and not a corpse in sight - sanitised destruction pornography at its finest and least emotionally affecting; the alleged science behind the film... wasn't.

Worst of all, the secondary characters were reduced to a parade of dull badly-painted stereotypes marching along and dying so that Our Heroes could live (oh, the power of the white Anglo-Saxon middle-class American heterosexual nuclear family! It can even withstand the end of the world. Even when it is composed entirely of unmitigated morons who probably couldn't be trusted to know which end of a spoon was which, let alone get themselves out of any sort of trouble.) I cannot have been the only person who was cheering for the scheming politician and the evil Russian guy, both of whom were just about the only sensible people in the whole damned movie.

(Just an aside: Evil Russians are one stereotype you'll never hear me complain about. I'm Russian-Australian and I like having an instant reputation as a smirking R-rolling cutthroat machiavellian. Also, that actor had the most incredible accent ever. I was glad to find out it was real. I'd say "Good luck understanding his dialogue," but this is 2012; just assume all the characters are reciting the Spongebob Squarepants theme over and over, it's more intelligent and sensible than the real script.)

So what did I think of the movie?

IT WAS AWESOME

Seriously, go see it. Take some popcorn, eat it during the dramatic scenes - or better still, take it as a parodic comedy interspersed with things blowing up spectacularly, like I did. When it tries to be serious, it's so bad it's hilarious. When it tries to be honest to its real purpose - which is destroying ****ing everything - it is excellent.

Everybody likes to see things blowing up, and 2012 blows things up like I have never seen before. Echo's right, it has some of the finest disaster special effects - possibly the absolute finest - in Hollywood to date. The artistry of the thing is incredible. It's worth seeing just for the collapse of California into the sea (which isn't a spoiler, it was on the trailer; the advertisers knew what this movie is all about.)

Just make sure you leave your brain at the door.

Awesome movie.

 

[Deneya]

I didn't like it. I tried to leave my brain at the door...but.....anyway, I just found it WAY too over the top in some places that I felt i couldn't even be entertained by it.

The effects were awesome - no complaints there.

Maybe I am just getting too old.....

 

[Fink]

It was a spectacular train wreck..

 

[MissEcho]

hehe well I didn't recommend it for its 'sterling quality script and academy award winning acting'!

Cusack is just easier on the eyes than say an older Harrison Ford who really does 'look' tooooo old now doing some of the things he is in. Then again I am a huge Cusack fan lol, loved him since that weird 'Better off Dead' flick way back when videos were still coming in beta and vhs lmao! "I want my two dollars" ....... Sheesh he must of been in diapers back then, 1985..... 24 yrs ago!

 

[five oclock]

MissEcho....Thank U for making me feel very old LOL I seen that movie in the thearter back in the day LOL. The girl I was seeing at the time loved him....The girl is gone...but that movie to this day is still a good movie...LoL...

Camero FTW! LoL

 

[Fink]

Grosse Point Blank is my favourite film with John Cusack, followed by Being John Malkovich and High Fidelity. He ordinarily makes some fairly intelligent script choices..

 

[Deneya]

Did anyone see him in Identity?

Now that was a good film.

 

[siyeng0]

I do like John Cusack. He managed to almost redeem the character.

But not quite. You don't take your tiny child with you when you go to explore a volcano that's about to blow its top! No! Bad parenting! No biscuit! Although to be fair, I hated that entire family from the start and was hoping that they all died - nothing personal, but I'm just annoyed by the predominance and seeming immortality of white middle-class Americans in that sort of film.

That wasn't Cusack's fault, though.

Chiwetel Ejiofor was very good too. I felt sorry for both of them. They were far too dignified (and handsome) for that movie. If they'd been true to its patently absurd heart, they should have cast somebody ridiculous in the role like... I don't know... Adam Sandler. (He wouldn't have lived, though. Too Jewish.) Or Jason Alexander. I would pay double to see him hauling screaming children across a peri-apocalyptic world.

(Speaking of handsome 2012 people, Sasha the Russian pilot wasn't too bad either. But his accent was catastrophically un-Russian so that lost him points.)

Edit: Wait, no it wasn't. He wins the award for the fakest-sounding authentic accent ever.

 

[Fink]

He wins the award for the fakest-sounding authentic accent ever.

I'm almost sure they took him aside and said "Can you try to sound more pre-Glasnost?"

 

[siyeng0]

I'm almost sure they took him aside and said "Can you try to sound more pre-Glasnost?"

He is apparently Estonian. I've never met an Estonian; I am assuming that they sound a great deal like Russians, given how close the two countries are (do not repeat this to a nationalistic Russian [or Estonian] - these are sensitive matters) but there's always the possibility that there is a little pocket of people up there that speak perfect American English, and that explains why he apparently had to badly imitate an accent he should have already had.

Although, what would I know? I sound a little like a helium balloon zooming mid-deflation around a small room full of maracas, I have no right to comment on other people's accents.

 

[Fink]

I only know one Estonian and he sounds like Steve Irwin.

Although, what would I know? I sound a little like a helium balloon zooming mid-deflation around a small room full of maracas, I have no right to comment on other people's accents.

Of course, now I have that image in my head I must have a sample of the sound that inspired it.