Reflections from the pensieve

If you knew that the world is gonna end soon after watching this movie you would pray it surely wouldn’t want it to end the way it’s depicted in 2012. Roland Emmerich gets a hattrick of end of civilization movies after Independence Day and Day After Tomorrow. And he succeeds in enthralling the audience the third time in a row. 2012 is set against the Mayan prophesy of the world coming to an end in 2012. (Special news which states that NASA had to build a special team to debunk the myths of Mayan civilization which point out the destruction: http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20091107/981/tsc-scientists-debunk-six-2012-end-of-th.html). Rumors are rife that the world would come to an end at 2012. Don’t know who would be benefitted from this rumor but the movie must have gained a very good opening across the world. Might be a marketing gimmick by the movie guys, riding on fear, don’t know just speculations which might turn out in favor of the movie. The film revolves around the lives of a few characters that during the course of the movie face a brave death, a accidental death, get stranded or get rescued. One of the stories which presumably is the mainstay of the movie is that of John Cusack, who plays the role of Jackson, a struggling writer and struggling divorced parent trying to get the attention of his kids. Cusack does a lot of justice to the character save for some places where he looks out of place or emotions, he does the bulk of action sequences. Quite aptly supporting him are the characters Adrian (the scientist who first brings the calamity to the govt. notice), Jackson’s wife and Carl the opportunistic rational govt. servant.

Coming back to the real ingredient of the movie, it’s the thrilling action sequences, which really make you jump on your seats, biting your nails and praying that this shouldn’t not happen atleast when we are dying. The first sequence of the earthquake which destroys the whole of California is simply simply non describable. Its about 10 minutes and in 10 minutes you are presented the worst nightmare of you in the form of crumbling buildings, bridges, cars smashing, and the road crumbling beneath you. That 10 minutes is simply what the movie stands for Total Devastation. Had it been a 3D many would have gasped for their breath, so awesome was it. The scene in Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds where the bridge collapses comes a wee bit closer to some parts of this one. The other scenes too are out of the box with flames from the volcano firing like meteors, driving a half burnt cab dodging the meteors like bullet, and then the thick smoke, which threatens to engulf a humongous aircraft, or the giant tsunamis which are big enough for Mount Everest. You can imagine how grand the scenes would have been. But the climax sequences failed to impress me, it wasn't great not even close to the massive earthquake piece which i described earlier. The director could have made this climax a more dramatic one and less thrilling and you end up asking for a better one. 

Roland Emmerich draws a lot of parallel from his previous two movies like the President of US of A being nothing less than a hero, either the president or the vice president facing a chopper crash while being escorted to the safe zone, or highlighting the relevance of developing or third world countries i.e. in day after tomorrow it was a south American nation which opened its gates to American refugees, similarly here the prediction of the calamity is brought to light by an Indian Astrophysicist (something to cheer about, fellow Indians J), the new world is Africa, and the safe eviction point being China. But he leaves some minor errors in his direction cum screenplay like for e.g. lets take the example of our own Indian fella the Astrophysicist, our man can talk English in an Indian accent but the blunder is he talks Hindi in an English accent (stumped!!!), second would be when the faithful gather in prayer in Rome with candles, where they are stuck by a massive earthquake, there’s no fire inspite of the innumerable amount of candles (I know the earthquake and the falling of the building was more important but this is Roland) and last but not the least mobiles working in India that too when there is total destruction around (amazing someone please tell Roland that in India you need to have towers). But such minor mistakes go all unnoticed in front of the amazing cataclysmic scenes in the movie.

In the end you come out of the theatre with a awe, talking how great the scenes were, but not completely satisfied I mean (100%), this movie could have been brilliant, it turned out to be a shade lower simply great. I was 95% satisfied by that 5% could have been easily turned to make it a simply superb movie. The story sometimes goes too slow for such a movie, it puts a lot of drama and irrelevant conversations which makes the impact go lose for some time, and some action scenes seemed like they were orphaned like the giant tsunami overturning a giant cruise which ends abruptly.  The movie is like a roller coaster ride up and down then suddenly very high, dips and so on. But the action sequences try to plaster the fallen moulds of direction and storyline. 

Masand gave a rating of 3 << http://ibnlive.in.com/news/masands-movie-review-2012-is-loud-and-crazy/105204-8.html >>  

My take on the movie

Story – Average

Direction – Good

Scenes – CANNOT be COMPARED, BREATHSTOPPING

Watch it – DEFINITELY