2013 will be remembered as the year in which Planet Earth did not have a particularly easy time onscreen. Looking back, there was a surprising number of movies that dealt with the end of the world, the impending end of the world, or a future in which Earth isn't quite what it used to be. Whether it be zombies, blanks, kaiju or Tom Cruise, our planet took a cinematic battering this year. The World's End and This is the End showcased both British and American comic actors dealing with the end of the world, with both movies taking wildly different directions but still being amongst the year's funniest efforts. World War Z showed how the zombie apocalypse could quickly bring the world to a standstill, and in Pacific Rim Idris Elba famously threatened to cancel it in Guillermo del Toro's giant robots vs giant monsters showdown for the fate of the planet. Both Oblivion and Elysium delivered two different depictions of a future in which Earth's natural resources are becoming ever more scarce, and even the crushingly dull After Earth showed how in a thousand years time our planet has become abandoned, inhospitable and overrun with poor CGI. Runner-Up: London Takes A Battering While our planet as a whole didn't get the easiest ride at the multiplex this year, no individual city got things as bad as London. Maybe someone in Hollywood has a grudge against the English capital, or maybe its simply the benefits of shooting there and utilizing the facilities available. Either way, GI Joe: Retaliation saw a large part of the city destroyed (remember, it was only the Eiffel Tower that was affected in the original movie's Paris attack), Fast and Furious 6 saw car chases and explosions aplenty, and Thor: The Dark World saw an full-blown inter-realm invasion. To think, Benedict Cumberbatch's little explosion in Star Trek Into Darkness seems fairly tame by comparison.
I don't do social media, so like or follow me in person but please maintain a safe distance or the authorities will be notified. Don't snap me though, I'll probably break. I was once labelled a misogynist on this very site in a twenty paragraph-long rant for daring to speak ill of the Twilight franchise. I stand by what I said, it's crap.
