Why I'm not seeing 2012, and INDEPENDENCE DAY sequel moves closer
Emmerich actually wants ID4-ever to be two movies, and claims Will Smith will return for another alien invasion.
Opening worldwide today is Roland Emmerich's latest disaster porn movie 2012 and the word is, it's his most loony, over-the-top, self-indulgent and hollow piece of film-making yet but which Jeff Wells claims is "certifiably insane and must be seen because of this fearless wackazoid quality". Every single critic that has seen it claim it to be the most ridiculous movie they've ever seen, with the kind of special effects for the sake of special effects that will blow your mind. Roger Ebert, with the kind of review that Columbia Pictures will be gushing over this weekend, calls 2012"the mother of all disaster movies (and the father, and the extended family)" and that Emmerich "unleashes two hours of cataclysmic special events hammering the Earth relentlessly... ends the world, stomps on it, grinds it up and spits it out".2012 looks to be on course to be the biggest crowd pleaser of 2010 and may just well be on course for a $50 million plus opening.
One day soon, we will see a disaster film from Emmerich which doesn't even bother to include human characters at all. For anyone with a penchant for actual characters in their movie soup, I have a feeling this is going to be a cold, cold, tasteless film. It looks like full scale porn. Everything else just gets in the way, dialogue, human emotion etc, and it's fascinating to see the characters in Emmerich's movies get less and less and less important as his filmography progresses. Stargate and Independence Day were adequately fine special effects blockbusters. The heart and soul of characters was still there despite all of the craziness but in every movie since, Emmerich has stripped personalities away. Something changed in his thinking with Godzilla, and it was really a case that once special effects technology had improved, he just couldn't help himself but to indulge away with it. I stopped watching his movies after The Day After Tomorrow (which by the way, had some of the best special effects I had ever seen by that point) and I will continue the trend by not seeing 2012 this afternoon. I have respect for my hard-earned money and I would hope my readers of this site would too. And if you thought Emmerich had gotten all off his pent up aggression against the world's landmarks off his chest (seriously, what has this guy not blown up yet) then you are grossly mistaken. Emmerich tells MTV that the long discussed Independence Day sequel is happening, and it won't just be one movie... "What we want to do in the next it's actually two movies we want to do a bigger arc," he explained. "'Independence Day' was always like the king who leads his troops into battle against an evil force, and that stays like that...It's always about earth and that earth gets invaded," he said.He wants to go with ID4-ever as the working title for the first movie and he claims Will Smith is on board once the movie is a go. My guess is they will go with the same aliens from the first movie, returning to unleash hell on Earth once again.