By Anne Brodie Nov 10, 2009, 10:46 GMT
Roland Emmerich’s up to his familiar old ways – “My films are bigger, louder and splashier than yours are!” and while that may be true, it doesn’t make them good or worthy.
Emmerich has never been able to get out of his own way in making films – he requires jothing less than total annihilation of earth. They’re about sound, fury and shallow anthology storylines that signify nothing much. His overused End of Days scenario is as tired as this film is long; he has nothing to say that he didn’t already sayd in Godzilla, 10,000 B.C., Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow.
Disaster epics are so mid- nineties, the golden era of CGI, when computer geeks found ways to blow up the earth realistically and paved the road for a decade long string of high octane, low sense assaults on audiences. Emmerich was responsible for many – as producer or director and cpycats were plentiful. A partial list of interchangeably formulaic disaster films includes Deep Impact, Executive Decision, Dante’s Peak, Volcano, Armegeddon, and Perfect Storm – all triumphs of computer imaging.
But that was then and this is now.
These days, audiences are sophisticated and unnnshockable, well beyond that CGI gee whiz phase. A mobile phone can do everything but wash the dishes, so blowing up the California coastline or flooding China doesn’t really amount to much.
The disaster epic genre hasn’t been in its grave long enough to be of nostalgic interest, and yet, someone spent $265M to get 2012 made. Even the stars are from the mid-nineties - Jon Cusack, Amanda Peet and Danny Glover.
The effects are exciting for the first hour or so, but they begin to grate on the nerves - too much, too many, and too little relief. The storylines are formulaic and predictable –everything that happens you know will happen; every cliché in the book is here. The audience’ intelligence is severely underestimated. But maybe audiences that weren’t around to see movies in the disaster era may take a shine to this slick, weather gone wild porn.
Natural disasters are all well and good, our most troubling challenges at this moment in time are man made – economic collapse, wars in the Middle East, terrorism, crazed shooters, global warming, sex addicted talk show hosts and fights in swine flu innoculations lines. Nature running amok all by herself is really not on our Top Ten Worries list these days. Who has time? And as we have established, we already did that.
We’re doing what we can to improve the environment; we’re trying to be more humane and inclusive, we put a black president into office and we run for the cure. Things have changed since Emmerich first hit us over the head and there is no reason to turn back.
A successful disaster movie should be a fun ride- this is anything but. It takes itself too seriously to amuse. There’s no comic relief and few authentic human moments – even though that excellent British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor tries mightily.
Even so, the film will make potsful of money and inspire yet another wave of computer created disaster epics. Emmerich allegedly has two more disaster films skedded, one about a train heading to destroy New York and another about an entity from space threatening the earth. Whatever.
35mm sci fi thrillerWritten and directed by Roland EmmerichOpens: Nov. 13MPAA: Rated PG-13 for intense disaster sequences and some languageRuntime: 158 minutesCountry: USA / CanadaLanguage: English
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