2012

I had been waiting for this film, counting down for a week when I thought it was just right amount of time to be excited of the film. I have always been a fan of natural disaster film. I don't know why, and neither am I interested to explain. Something about how the earth opens up and fury and anger of the mother nature terrifies me and I like it when the special effect catch the moments well. So, yes, I love The Day After Tomorrow, Dante's Peak, Armageddon, Twister and more. They were really good.

To know that the producers of this film are the same as The Day After Tomorrow is almost like an assurance that the film would be as exciting and good. So, I got my ticket early.. way before tickets are announced to be sold out, and only leaving front row seats.



Even the trailer was terrific, making audience with great expectation and excitement.

The special effects were good. I have to give the movie that. And that was what I was paying to watch. I mean, the special effects are the actual actor of the show. And of course, good stories and believable plots should be good too, except that I am not feeling them for this film.

I like John Cusack. I have liked this actor since.. I don't know when. I don't really recall his films right now, other than Must Love Dogs. But as much as I had wanted to see him in a believable reluctant hero spot, I was not. He was not supposed to outshine the film, and he did not. But neither should he had to struggle to convince me that he was a true hero inside. I was not feeling it for him. Neither did I care if he had lived or died, unlike Dennis Quaid or Jake Gyllenhaall in The Day After Tomorrow.

Maybe.. just maybe it was because I did not like the role he was playing - Jackson Curtis. Jackson Curtis is the divorced dad, who is struggling to prove that he is very much the good dad he believes himself to be. So, he takes his two young kids to a campsite in Yellowstone. There, although the place is already sealed off, with warning, he climbs over the fence, bringing his children to the 'no entry' zone. Not only that, he walks his children to the dried spot of the lake, which has mysterious steams oozing out, as well as corpse of a deer. Such a loving father.

And then of course later on, as he rushes to find an important map, he has to bring his daughter along, instead leaving her with the mother near the important vehicle to fly away with - the plane. And leave the kid in the van when an earthquake could have separated the child from him?

And what's with the kids and their inability to stick to a spot? After a wasted time explanation to the boy that he has to stay behind to take care of the sister, the boy still swims away to find his father.. irritating.. as irritating as the screaming little witch girl (Dakota Fanning) in Tom Cruise's War of the World. Just like that movie, I was screaming in my mind - Die you, kid. Die!

And then, the stupid speech. You know.. with only 14 minutes to go.. when people are already panic about survival, the director allows the speech of mankind and not. Damn. It was crap. Come on. Tsunami is coming. There's no time for a great speech of good humanitarian value and all that shit.

As well as Jackson's moment with his kid and the kiss for the ex-wife. Damn it! People are going to die. Stop being horny for the ex.

And then, as the door was shut eventually, the people in the ship did not even cheer for that their lives are already saved. Nope. They wait. They wait for some man - in this case, Jackson Curtis (whom they have no idea who he is, nor what he is doing in screen or that room) to merge from the water, and then they cheer. They cheer for a man they don't even know. No, they do not cheer when they are safe. They cheer for some seemingly unrelated event.

And really, I hate Woody Harrelson. I would have loved the volcano special effect at Yellowstone, but Woody spoils it for me.