"2012" on Speed

[quade 3]

I don’t know about you, but when I went to see "Speed" I wasn’t thinking it would be great art. I thought to myself; “Sure, it’s going to be stupid, but I can tune out for a bit and be entertained.” And really, that’s all the movie was supposed to be anyway. Just a bit of fluff in your life to take your mind off of the insanity. Then, somewhere in the third act, they decided to ratchet up the action a bit and do something that was, well, so incredibly stupid that it took you out of the fiction and made you say; “Oh come on! Really? A bus just jumped over a gap in the freeway and landed on the other side? FFS, that’s simply not possible. It might as well have sprouted wings to save itself."

Yeah, that was stupid. What it did was break a familiar law of physics and how we know things behave for a stupid stunt somebody thought would be cool that stopped us cold in our tracks and actually screwed up our thought process, thereby losing us.

Well, "2012" is a lot like that. Sadly, they didn’t even wait until act three.

In fact, not only do we see that gag done once, we see it done three times, by the same character in three different vehicles in three different parts of the movie. Really?

Now I know what you’re saying, you’re saying; “but Paul, it’s a movie about the end of the world. You have to let them do some whacky stuff.” No. Not that much. Certainly not that early with the graphics turned up to 11. It just doesn't give them anywhere to go.

You can change a single piece of reality and have the end of the world come. Fine, that’s your freekin’ movie right there. But when you add in all of the extremely lame cliff hangers, chases, collapsing buildings and narrow escapes that come up in this film, it simply makes no sense whatsoever that our main character makes it out of the first reel, let alone saves the day at the end of the film. The logic just doesn’t add up and feel right in the first ten minutes.

John August recently wrote on his blog;

"As the writer, you need to burn down houses. You need to push characters out of their safe places into the big scary world — and make sure they can never get back. Sure, their stated quest might be to get home, but your job is to make sure that wherever they end up is a new and different place.”

http://johnaugust.com/

Ok, fine, but there is over doing it and "2012" is way past that line way too early in the film.

I guess the only good thing I can say about a lot of the cliff hanger scenes; if you need to go out for popcorn or visit the restroom, feel free to do so at anytime. There's going to be another scene exactly like it in about 30 minutes. And I do mean exactly.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[quade 3]

Just found a corrected soundtrack version with an example scene on YouTube.

This makes way more sense now.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[riddler 0]

Proof that even CG can "chew the scenery". I love the escape-by-airplane concept. Even though the ground underneath is falling thousands of feet, the air above is smooth as silk - no turbulence there

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[lost_n_confuzd 0]

But Paul, it’s a movie about the end of the world. You have to let them do some whacky stuff.

Pop quiz!, is it worth watching at the cinema? Or should I wait for it on redbox?

[quade 3]

Quote

. . . is it worth watching at the cinema? Or should I wait for it on redbox?

I'm not entirely certain it's worth the wear and tear on your interweb computer box to bit torrent for free.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[JohnMitchell 14]

Quote

Just found a corrected soundtrack version with an example scene on YouTube.

This makes way more sense now.

That was perfect.

There is waaay too much over the top CGI stuff today, with so little story to cover the movie. I'm ashamed to see John Cusak in this hokey piece of #%&*. What a waste of talent.

[Nataly 38]

Quote

Just found a corrected soundtrack version with an example scene on YouTube.

This makes way more sense now.

Wow.. And I thought you were exaggerating.. That is seriously crap - hard to imagine the rest of the movie is worth seeing..

Thanks for that link.. I probably would have wasted my time and money to go see this film!

"There is no problem so bad you can't make it worse."
- Chris Hadfield
« Sors le martinet et flagelle toi indigne contrôleuse de gestion. »
- my boss

[SpeedRacer 1]

why did it take so long for the plane to climb just a couple hundred feet?

Speed Racer
--------------------------------------------------

[ryoder 1,390]

Quote

Just found a corrected soundtrack version with an example scene on YouTube.

This makes way more sense now.

LMAO!
That makes me want to rent Raising Arizona again!

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[billvon 2,402]

>why did it take so long for the plane to climb just a couple hundred feet?

Indeed, about 30 seconds after takeoff it seems to fly under a flying subway train, presumably emerging from its former tunnel. So there's quite a bit of descending as well.

I saw it (nothing else to do on a slow Friday) and one thing surprised me. Obviously the director was trying to make the audience jump, with the sudden appearances of rolling donuts, exploding lava bombs and careening cement mixers. But I only jumped once - when Cusack gets out of the plane before it comes to a stop and runs in front of the left engine of their airplane.

I guess I don't have reflexes when it comes to buildings falling on the airplanes I fly in, but I appear to have a very deeply ingrained "keep that whuffo away from the prop!" instinct. It actually got my heart going.