2012:Roland Emmerich’s CGI Masterpiece

I decided to go see a movie tonight. There weren’t many options and to be honest who doesn’t want to see a popcorn movie every now and then. With all the twitter buzz and constant promotion of 2012 who wouldn’t be drawn to the new action movie. (Unless your a 14 year old girl, Twilight fans…) So yes, I did go to see 2012. I won’t rat out who cam with me, but she came on her own free will. Despite what she may say.

We got there early. With snacks tucked away in her purse and we were surprised to see fifty people already in line waiting to sit in the theatre. Is this movie really that big of a deal? John Cusack fans maybe? Why do so many people want to see this movie?

This movie was beautiful, the special effects were ridiculous. So much earthquakes and crap falling apart/blowing up/falling into the earth. But there are so many problems with this movie it’s not very fair to try and judge it. So spoiler alert! Here’s somethings I found amusing or liked.

1. Danny Glover as the President. Man I love me some Danny Glover and his gruff whisper acting. How close do they have to get the mic to that guy? I seriously love him and my favorite part of the movie is when he asks for the translators of the world leaders to give him a minute to talk them in private. He says, “Your English is sufficient.” Then he goes into a speech with numerous multi-syllabic words. It was like a SAT vocabulary test. But what can you expect from this kind of a script?

2. This movie has so many moments where trouble is right on the heels of John Cusack. He’s in so much constant peril it’s ridiculous. Plus there are too many scenes where a plane is taking off from a runway that’s too short. That scene was copied and pasted into the script a couple of times.

3. This movie is so cheese-ball. I loved the stereotypical Russians.

4. Woody Harrelson. What a champ. The man decided to do whatever crazy thing he wanted. That pickle thing was the best part of the movie. The movie goes downhill after he dies.

5. The dog survives! That dog made it onto the ark, what a champ! How ridiculous…who would win in a fight that dog or Woody Harrelson? Debate!

6. Oliver Platt and Chiwetel Ejiofor make the movie watchable. These guys are good actors and make things enjoyable…sort of. Mr. Ejiofor joins Ioan Gruffudd and Djimon Hounsou in the Actors-I-Like-But-Don’t-Know-How-To-Say-Your-Name list.

7. The Boss from Just Shoot Me is in this movie, there should have been more of him.

8. Why was this movie so long!? I spilled a bit of the soda I sneaked into the theatre on my pants and was worried that I would walk out looking like I peed myself. But the movie was so long it dried by the time it was over. I would have rather been embarrassed than sit through a movie longer than 90 minutes.

9. I thought Danny Glover was going to have a Bill Pullman president speech like in ID4 during that presidential address. But it was not nearly as awesome and it was cut short. Bill Pullman’s speech goes down in history as best movie president speech ever.

10. Speaking of Independence Day. Roland Emmerich will never make a movie better than Independence Day. Ever. That movie is classic. I want to see that movie now. This might be the closest Emmerich gets to making a good movie again. Retire my friend or make a video game. If this movie was a video game I’d want to play it.