I watched the online trailer for the upcoming Roland Emmerich film '2012' the other day. I guess this same trailer is showing in theaters. If you haven't seen it, the gist is that the so-called 'Mayan 2012 prophecy' comes true, and civilization collapses. The Yellowstone caldera erupts. The giant Christ the Redeemer statue crumbles and falls as Rio de Janeiro burns below. St. Peter's Basilica collapses, sending its dome rolling out into Vatican Square. A city which I assume is Los Angeles slides into the sea. Oliver Platt hisses about ensuring 'the continuation of our thpeeeeetheeeees.' Air Force One is swallowed up by a tidal wave. A Buddhist monastery in the Himalayas is washed away by the crashing waves.
And this is just the trailer - which concludes with a tsunami coming up the Potomac River and dropping an aircraft carrier on the White House.
It's a phenomenal trailer, with only a couple of shots that are obviously CG effects.
But, boy am I worn out with these disaster films that are strings of shots of landmarks being destroyed by tidal waves, meteors, aliens, giant mutants, global warming, global cooling, dinosaurs, whatever.
It seems to me we've reached a point where these movies are just a kind of 'disaster porn,' with each movie trying to top the one before it. Millions die, and it's good for a five second shot before we go to the next shot, where millions more die. There's so much death and destruction it becomes impossible to assimilate. On the one hand, I'm fascinated by the awful spectacle of it, but on the other hand, I can't bring myself to actually care about it.
And I don't think I'll spend time and money on something that depressing.
No comments:
Post a Comment