Today I decided as I had no work to do I would go to the cinema. Looking at what was available I chose 'Harry Brown' starring Micheal Caine as a outlaw justice-serving pensioner, but due to a cock-up with our poor public transit, we missed the screening and instead had to settle for '2012'. (Don't judge me, it was that or Twilight)



I'd seen so many trailers for this film that it put me off seeing it, but as I was about to watch it, I decided to forget all my pre-judgement and follow it through. There were so many things that annoyed me about this film, meaning this blog-post will just be a mindless rant. A few rules this film laid down and molested were:

- As it was a disaster movie the President of America had to a strong, black man. Since 'Deep Impact', having a white president would be seen as breaking the genre, especially if he survived instead of taking the 'I'm the most important bloke here, but I'm going to stay behind and look noble while I drown/blow up'

- It doesn't matter what world catastrophe is taking place and how many people are dying by the second, as long as John Cusack's kids are alive, all is well.

- Whole continents have submerged and turned into a fiery mess, but the audience must concentrate on the fact that the un-deserving dog is on the cusp of survival

- Foreign scientists saying things about heat instantly rules out any argument against the realism of the film as long as they explain in the first 30 minutes their excuse for the upcoming destruction.

- Even disaster movies need villains! You'd of thought the audience's hatred could be directed towards the solar flare or perhaps the design of the earth's interior in this case, but no. A arrogant Russian billionnaire is the man who's demise we want to see, even though billions of people have died already, seeing this one extra man disappear would almost make the world disaster worthwhile.


10 minutes in I was wishing Micheal Caine was throwing around cockney annecdotes holding a pistol rather than watching this renditon of the discovery channel on crack-cocaine, but obviously, one reason why I was there was for the CGI. I like Ice Cream, but I would be severely pissed off if I woke up one day and someone had painted my walls with Ben and Jerrys, which is exactly how I felt when Calfornia started to fall into a hole.

The CG was brilliant, it was as convincing as it could have been at this point it just seemed so overdone. The first CG-heavy scene shows John Cusack, playing an author, suddenly turn into the Stig. I was confused as he seemed to be able to not only drive at the minimum speed of survival but had no qualms with driving through buildings. I think the earth's crust should have been given more credit in this film,as in a very gentlemanly manner, it always kept a few foot behind the escaping family until they were at a point of safety, and at one point, completely halted it's operations until Cusack climbed out of a hole.



I must say, the last hour or so of the film was much more enjoyable (Though still awful). It had a sort of weird metaphor for global warming as well as religion with the 'arcs' and the animals, including a shot of some in-your-face ethic-united utopia at the end. If you are in the mood to watch something where very little thinking is involved (Although the director would probably argue this to be the deepest film since The Shawshank Redemption) and want to see people narrowly avoiding being crushed / drowned / set on fire  then go for it, but I personally wish I'd spent considerably less time watching Micheal Caine kicking seven-shades of shit out of a hoody.