Weekend Matinee: 2012

I know what you're thinking: It's Saturday afternoon and you're desperately looking for something to pass the time that doesn't involve fresh air or extraneous activity. Allow me to help you out, with my Weekend Matinee. This week, Ronald Emmrich's disaster 2012.

I was totally blown away by this one. Well, almost. To start, the movie is totally insane. From John Cusack out running an earthquake in a limo and then outrunning a megavolcano in an old RV, to the incredible series of complications that make up the final half hour of the movie, it's amazing. The small looks, the overwrought acting, the sheer audacity of it all is something. What that something is, I'm not sure, but you should totally check it out.

I kept having this though during the first half 2012, that Ronald Emmerich just really hates nature. It seemed that every time he showed some beautiful vista, he'd destroy it with some mega natural disaster that, of course, our human heroes could outrun like nothing. It got to the point where I'd yell, 'Fuck you, nature', at the screen every few minutes.

I may have been drinking a little.

But as the movie progressed, I saw that Emmerich was making sure to ruin every landmark he could, from the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel to the Washington Monument and The White House. And more, that he would randomly kill major characters with little to no fanfare.

By the end of the movie, I convinced myself that Ronald Emmerich hates everything: nature, people, and places. It doesn't matter, if someone might like something and hold it dear, Ronald Emmerich wants to destroy it... in the most spectacular way possible. The man's a menace. I can't wait to see what he does next.

Anyway, 'praise' for this movie notwithstanding, it isn't without it's major faults. Namely, it's two and a half FUCKING hours long. The one thing that keeps this from jumping up in my catalog of amazingly bad movies is it's excruciating length.

While I had some great fun mid way through the thing, by the start of hour two I was just done with it. That last half hour, which is all last minute complications and 'excitement' became an endurance test of how much I could take in this effing movie. I was almost rooting for them all to die so I'd at least get some kind of joy from it all.

So there you have it: Kind of fun, but way too long. And, as always, make sure when you check this out you have plenty of booze around. A little impaired viewing helps ease over all those negatives.

To illustrate my point about the awesomeness, this week's clip is the first big chase scene where Cusack outruns the earthquake in this limo, with all the special effects edited out.

Enjoy!