I like good movies. I even like stylized bad movies, I mean, I like Hudson Hawk. But every now and then something is made in Hollywood that just says we know you aren't paying attention. Not only is what we're saying not plausible, some of the basic stuff is silly too. And you'll pay $9 a ticket to see it. And they wonder why people bootleg.
The other night, I watched the movie 2012 on one them channels I pay for. They need to stop.
I am more convinced than ever, than ever, I can be a Hollywood screen writer.
This movie throws so many basic common sense concepts in the garbage, so many simple ideas out the window, that when it was done and viewed as whole, I'm surprised they didn't market it as a comedy. Laughable is the word I want to use. It was as though they stuck every bad screen writer in Hollywood together in a room and mixed whatever came out all together. I kept looking for the name Peter Griffin, executive producer.
Transcript - 2012 - film overview meeting:
We need an action movie. Okay...Government conspiracy. Check. Speeding car scene. Check. Oooh, make it a limo. Good, good. Last minute plane escape. No, two last minute escapes by plane. No, not last minute, last second! Yeah. Wait, you know what's better than two? Three! Throw in a noble sacrifice or two, rich guy learns a lesson, poor guy gets family back and a couple of assholes who get trumped in the end. Now we got a movie!
I am so hurt.
Let me start at the beginning of things that irritated the life out of me about this film. Here we go....
Our hero in California takes his kids on vacation for the weekend to Yellowstone National Park. By car. Three states away. Not three states like Massachusetts to Maine, but three big Western States. California, a little bit of Nevada, Utah and Idaho or Wyoming. In a weekend. In a car.
They jump a fence, get picked up by the military and meet the head of the project. The head of a top secret project in the middle of the biggest event in history, with the fate of the humanity in the balance, and he takes a few minutes to check out the trespassers. And then lets them go?
The Dad drives back from Yellowstone to LA in one day. Half a conversation with a conspiracy nut, an earthquake and snarky comment from a little kid and suddenly...he pieces it all together? Rutabaga? Kiss my ass.
The racing out of LA...both the limo and the plane flight. That he was able to rent the plane for a watch is baffling.
Why did the Russian billionaire walk out of the fight, since he was STILL in Vegas that next morning? What was the rush?
They're actually there when the super-volcano under Yellowstone blows. (This part is actually based on something real, there really is a super-volcano under Yellowstone. Only we've got somewhere between 100 years and 10,000 years in the real time line. But that's creative license, so okay.) But they're within sight of it when it blows. And don't die. Outrunning it and an earthquake in a Winnebago. The father crawling out of the crevice to get on the plane was...you know what, I let that go.
Why was the President the only one conscious when the aircraft carrier hit the White House? When they were halfway to China and knew they would be short of fuel, whey didn't they dump the cars then? The plane would have been almost 20 tons lighter? Um, more flying time? Duh.
> China moving to them was actually a fairly neat script idea though, I will admit that.
> And the "Bentley start" scene was funny.
These people have the greatest cell phones in all creation. The Indian guy is standing there, looking at the tidal wave racing at him and calls his buddy, who gets a signal in China. Inside a mountain. Who is their carrier?
Why weren't the arks submerged when the water got there? They were high up on cradles like ..um targets.
How did they get the Chinese workers to agree to build them, and not give them seats? Especially when a random workers brother apparently knew enough to get his Grandparents to safety, so it wasn't like the workers didn't have a clue. Once the arks opened up and started boarding, it should have been a free for all. Or were they all hired at the "Minion Academy"?
I sat open mouthed at the stupidity of waiting until the last second to board the "Arks" on which they'd sold seats at a billion euros a pop ( which at the time of the movie meant roughly 2.4 billion dollars) to the wealthy, and expected these people to keep civilization alive. It was the rich people and the military. Really? What would motivate the military to keep following the rich folks? Didn't Douglas Adams explain the stupidity of this in Life the Universe and Everything almost 40 years ago?
Why did you have to close the door to start the engine? Seriously.
Let me do all the escapes scenes at once : He got there in the nick of time to save, got to the airport in the nick of time to get on the plane, in the nick of time before the volcano goes, and the nick getting out after, can you say nick of time flying out of Vegas, nick of time catching the old lady's attention, to the nick of time just as the ark was sealing up. Really...not one miss?And finally...and don't know how many folks caught this at the end, but a remark from the captain just clicked. Africa rose a thousand meters. Whole continent. And probably didn't flood. So probably more than a few million Africans survived. Which suddenly made the surviving half a million or so Caucasians and Asians a decided minority. Made it a much better movie for me.
Now this is from watching the movie...ONE TIME. These were glaring, neon glowing head scratcher moments. These are the ones I could remember. I can't imagine how many issues I'll find with repeated viewings.
I am stunned that this movie got made. That nobody thought this through. That even in the name of fun adventure escapism, you wanna kinda do a little better than this. And I'm putting this here, because it irritates me that ideas like this see the light of day.
I think this why I read a lot.
Barkeep, no, you really don't have anything strong enough.
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