The end of the world is getting so, well, old, especially if your name is Roland Emmerich. Emmerich is the brain-mulching, explosion-addicted, eyeball-crunching Bay-esque bigshot director who has built a profitable career on destroying mankind’s landmarks. In The Day After Tomorrow it was the Hollywood sign. In Independence Day, the White House. In Godzilla, the Chrysler Building and most of New York City. And in 2012, Emmerich’s latest round of apocalyptic CGI enabled furore, we wave bye bye to Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue, the Sistine Chapel and, er, most of the world. The trailer (watch it below) – a spectacular pastiche of money shots, and you just know there’s gonna be plenty more where that came from – has been dubbed ‘destructo porn’ by some commentators, a reasonable enough appraisal given Emmerich’s fetish for biblically-proportioned carnage. The story? Well, we can safely assume the narrative complexity of 2012 will amount to the delivery of one excessively rendered spectacle after the other. The movie’s cantankerous grandeur promises to be ever so slightly offset by the low key presence of leading man John Cusack, in what is likely to become one of the biggest movies of his career. Still, going by the evidence at hand, give me Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank any day.
2012 will be released in Australia November 12.
see it
skip it
don't rush
8 Comments
Judging by the trailer, this will be awesome!
Exact same plot as literally every one of these movies, except the CGI is just about the best I’ve ever seen. I’ll just leave the brain at home and be awed.
“The story? Well, we can safely assume the narrative complexity of 2012 will amount to the delivery of one excessively rendered spectacle after the other.”
Probably true. However, disaster movies rarely go for subtlety, and whatever one might say about Emmerich’s earlier work, he’s pretty good at destroying stuff.
That’s true Crippa. Good idea for a blog, btw. Out of interest what are your favourite disaster movies?
I’m quite fond of the 1970’s classics – Earthquake and The Towering Inferno are both great. And I have to admit I enjoyed The Day After Tomorrow a lot. As for pre-70’s disaster flicks, I need to fill some gaps in my education…which is one of the purposes of the blog.
Style over substance…again(much like the new Transformers flick).
We’ve probably all just seen the best parts of the film.
Talking about disaster films, just watched Knowing the latest Nick Cage film(made in Melbourne). Actually surprised how much I enjoyed the film(maybe enjoyed is the wrong word considering the subject matter). The two major disaster pieces in the film(not the finale) are “overall” two of the best CGI pieces I’ve seen to date. Quite realistic and harrowing. I won’t post anything else on the scenes/film as I wouldn’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it.
I wasn’t expected a great movie from Knowing but thoroughly enjoyed it. The ending is very, very WOW which is probably what the ending of every good disaster movie should be.
was war inc a sequel to grosse pointe blank? Also is there a decent version of GPB on dvd? Any extras at all?