The mystical, new-agey theories about the end of the world coming in 2012 because that's when the Mayan calendar ends are total hogwash, but the old-school sci-fi buff in me can see a fun movie being made about these ideas. Sadly, 2012, which came out last year and is now on DVD, is most assuredly not that movie. It is about the end of the world, but the Mayan stuff which could have been made the screenplay interesting plays almost no part in the plot. What really happened, I think, is that Roland Emmerich (maker of better disaster films like Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow) decided to do a remake of the 50's movie When Worlds Collide, in which Earth is about to be destroyed by another planet, and when he found out that Stephen Sommers (director of the Mummy remake and the terrible piece of celluliod crap called Van Helsing) had the rights to that--due out in 2012 according to IMDb--he threw in the Mayan theories as a convienent plot device, though it is totally jettisoned after the first few minutes of the movie.
Instead, the damned thing becomes yet another in a string of dumb movies (too much money spent on effects, not enough on screenwriting) in which an apocalypse occurs just so a man can become a better father (Day After Tomorrow, the Spielberg War of the Worlds, the execrable Signs). Here, that man is John Cusack, sleepwalking through his part as a divorced dad--though he does manage sly delivery of a few humorous lines now and then. Amanda Peet as his ex-wife (do ya think she might still love him?) and Tom McCarthy as her new partner (do ya think he might sacrifice himself so the exes can get back together?) are OK.
Two actors work up some presence: Chiwetel Ejiofor as a scientist who tries to warn the governments that freakish sunspots were shooting powerful neurtrinos at the earth, which could cause the core to heat up, which could cause planetwide earthquakes and flooding; and Woody Harrelson as a crazy radio host who spouts conspiracy theories at the drop of a hat (and who, of course, happens to be right about the coming apocalypse). Eye candy is provided by the handsome Estonian actor Johann Urb (pictured) as a Russian pilot who helps get Cusack, et al., to the government arks which have been designed to allow a handful (several hundred thousand, actually) to survive. Yes, the effects are pretty spectacular, particularly the fall of the Christ the Redeemer staute in Brazil and the flooding of the Himalayas, but any goodwill such digital destruction might have built up was itself destroyed by what amounts to an "extra" interminable half-hour ending after Cusack's family gets to the ark that comes right out The Poseidon Adventure (and without the camp presence of Shelley Winters, that's not a good thing) and feels like it goes dragging on for three hours.
Speaking of disasters, the film of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, also out on DVD, is atrocious. I was too old for the book to have been a touchstone of my childhood, but I do like most of Sendak's books, and I hate that Hollywood has done to this one what they've done to Dr. Seuss: taken very short, wonderfully whimsical stories aimed directly at kids and turned them into long, lumbering, bloated grotesqueries aimed more at adults who wish they were kids. The wild things themselves look great, actual people in big animal suits with facial movements done by CGI, but it's not worth sitting through the boring story about poor Max having to deal with adult neurotics in his escapist fantasyland. Shame on you, Spike Jonze. (Dave Eggers, co-writer, has no shame.) One pleasure: hearing Tony Soprano's heavy, mouth-breather voice (yes, it really is James Gandolfini) coming out of a Wild Thing's mouth.
The mystical, new-agey theories about the end of the world coming in 2012 because that's when the Mayan calendar ends are total hogwash, but the old-school sci-fi buff in me can see a fun movie being made about these ideas. Sadly, 2012, which came out last year and is now on DVD, is most assuredly not that movie. It is about the end of the world, but the Mayan stuff which could have been made the screenplay interesting plays almost no part in the plot. What really happened, I think, is that Roland Emmerich (maker of better disaster films like Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow) decided to do a remake of the 50's movie When Worlds Collide, in which Earth is about to be destroyed by another planet, and when he found out that Stephen Sommers (director of the Mummy remake and the terrible piece of celluliod crap called Van Helsing) had the rights to that--due out in 2012 according to IMDb--he threw in the Mayan theories as a convienent plot device, though it is totally jettisoned after the first few minutes of the movie.
Instead, the damned thing becomes yet another in a string of dumb movies (too much money spent on effects, not enough on screenwriting) in which an apocalypse occurs just so a man can become a better father (Day After Tomorrow, the Spielberg War of the Worlds, the execrable Signs). Here, that man is John Cusack, sleepwalking through his part as a divorced dad--though he does manage sly delivery of a few humorous lines now and then. Amanda Peet as his ex-wife (do ya think she might still love him?) and Tom McCarthy as her new partner (do ya think he might sacrifice himself so the exes can get back together?) are OK.
Two actors work up some presence: Chiwetel Ejiofor as a scientist who tries to warn the governments that freakish sunspots were shooting powerful neurtrinos at the earth, which could cause the core to heat up, which could cause planetwide earthquakes and flooding; and Woody Harrelson as a crazy radio host who spouts conspiracy theories at the drop of a hat (and who, of course, happens to be right about the coming apocalypse). Eye candy is provided by the handsome Estonian actor Johann Urb (pictured) as a Russian pilot who helps get Cusack, et al., to the government arks which have been designed to allow a handful (several hundred thousand, actually) to survive. Yes, the effects are pretty spectacular, particularly the fall of the Christ the Redeemer staute in Brazil and the flooding of the Himalayas, but any goodwill such digital destruction might have built up was itself destroyed by what amounts to an "extra" interminable half-hour ending after Cusack's family gets to the ark that comes right out The Poseidon Adventure (and without the camp presence of Shelley Winters, that's not a good thing) and feels like it goes dragging on for three hours.
Speaking of disasters, the film of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, also out on DVD, is atrocious. I was too old for the book to have been a touchstone of my childhood, but I do like most of Sendak's books, and I hate that Hollywood has done to this one what they've done to Dr. Seuss: taken very short, wonderfully whimsical stories aimed directly at kids and turned them into long, lumbering, bloated grotesqueries aimed more at adults who wish they were kids. The wild things themselves look great, actual people in big animal suits with facial movements done by CGI, but it's not worth sitting through the boring story about poor Max having to deal with adult neurotics in his escapist fantasyland. Shame on you, Spike Jonze. (Dave Eggers, co-writer, has no shame.) One pleasure: hearing Tony Soprano's heavy, mouth-breather voice (yes, it really is James Gandolfini) coming out of a Wild Thing's mouth.
3 comments:
Thanks for steering me clear of these two bombs, Mike. I was especially interested to know what you (and on) thought of _Wild Things_.
Re: Dave Eggers, I just read an article in last week's New Yorker about shopping in Brooklyn and discovered that he owns a shop there called the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, exploting--er, catering to kids. That pretty much sealed the "shameless" deal on him for me. What's your dirt about his shamelesness?
No dirt, I just think Eggers is pretentious and not as talented as he thinks he is, though I think as a publisher he's done some interesting stuff.
As for Don, he refused to watch Wild Things--it was a much more important book for him than for me.
Even though I'm of the _Wild Things_ generation, that book never meant much to me...not as much as some other art-heavy books like _Harold and the Purple Crayon_, or Ezra Jack Keats' _The Snowy Day_. But I still don't think I'll be renting the DVD.
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