Roland Emmerich’s latest is a good fun premise and starts off as an entertaining little disaster movie quickly dives into head scratching plot holes and absurdity that doesn’t make sense at any turn.
(Spoilers throughout, sorry they must be discussed)
The plot of the film revolves around the supposed end of the world predicted in the Mayan calendar with the end coming Dec 21st, 2012. The discovery of the impending changes is discovered three years early when some geological studies discover rising core temperatures and changing crust density that will lead to cataclysmic destruction and displacement of the land masses of the earth. The United States from here spear heads a massive project to build a set of arcs to help preserve the life and society of earth during the mass destruction. As the impending destruction arrives, the initial destruction of LA that we experience through John Cusack’s family characters eyes is indeed an impressive cinematic moment but after this and the explosion of Yellowstone the film drops off in quite a hurry.
The first problem is the Russian family that is inserted into the plot are completely unlikable and a waste of time. From here, how many times can we really see an airplane take off in destruction and narrowly make it? Once Cusack joins up with the Russians, his story become pretty worthless, and unfortunately they stay away from Chiwetel Ejiofor’s scientist with a conscious plot which is far more interesting, well until we get to the ludicrous final scenes. From here let me bullet point some thoughts that crossed my mind: [Read more...]
Review: 2012
Review: Run Fatboy Fun
David Schwimmer steps behind the camera to produce a solid sports comedy that doesn’t do anything spectacularly new or unpredictable, but is entertaining nonetheless.
Dennis Doyle (Simon Pegg) is a bit of a loser. About to get married to his pregnant fiancée Libby (Thandie Newton) Dennis freaks out and runs out on her and the family minutes before the ceremony. A few years later, Dennis shares custody of their son, Jake, and secretly longs for Libby kind of hoping that they will eventually end up together. Though, Libby has a new man in her life, Whit (Hank Azaria) an American business man, and Dennis decides he needs to win Libby back from this seemingly perfect man. Dennis devises a plan with his friend Gordon (Dylan Moran) to earn Libby back and get Gordon out of gambling debt with some not so friendly people; he will run a marathon to try and prove himself as good as a runner Whit is. [Read more...]
Review: RocknRolla
Guy Ritchie’s return to form in RocknRolla is a crazy, fun, and always cool look at crime in London, and while it might seem like re-tread territory to some, it is so damn entertaining that one should ask, why should we care?
To begin to explain this convoluted and twisting plot from the get go would be a bit of a pain, and Archie (Mark Strong) does a good job of keeping you in the loop as he narrates everyone’s comings and goings, but I will try my best to sum up here. Lenny (Tom Wilkinson) is a big wig crime boss in England that makes his money in property and twisting his connections into his favor. So when One Two (Gerard Butler) and Mumbles (Idris Elba) come to him with a lucrative property proposition, he gets in their way of a loan, and gets them to owe him money as well; all while he turns on the fast track to acquiring the property himself. To help fund this property, Lenny turns to Uri (Karel Roden) a Russian entrepreneur who is trying to get in on the property boom of London like many other “immigrants” are, and Lenny offers his contacts and connections at the cost of 7 million Euros. Uri eagerly agrees and offers his lucky painting as a sign of gratitude to Lenny and assures him that his (Uri) accountant (Thandie Newton) will be able to produce the money in little to no time. Well as you can imagine, things don’t go necessarily to plan and things become quite intertwined and a whole mess of trouble for everyone brews before the end. [Read more...]
Review: W.
Oliver Stone’s look at the political coming of age of the current President George W. Bush is an entertaining, engaging, and fairly unbiased look at the life of one of the most interesting political figures ever.
George W. Bush (Josh Brolin) didn’t always want to be a politician, his family was politics though, over the course of his entire life someone from his family was involved and running/holding office in some capacity on the state or national level. But W. wasn’t all that interested at first, he liked to drink, party, and be kind of a screw up. Jumping from job to job, not finding enjoyment in the work his family tries to lay out for him, moving from one wake of life to another, he was kind of all over the place. Jeb Bush was being groomed for political greatness, it was Jeb that George Sr. had aspirations for, and George Sr.’s lack of confidence in W. would prove to be a driving force in his passion to finally make something of himself. Becoming an owner of the Texas Rangers, attempting to become the Commissioner of MLB, none of these accolades earned W. the respect that he thought he deserved and with that he decided to seriously enter the political arena running for the Governor of Texas. [Read more...]
