  Mayhem! Mayhem! Mayhem! Better than I expected... but still pretty much what you expect. A disaster movie that takes disaster to a whole new level for sure. But there are some surprising elements that keep this film from being a complete disaster. Director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and *cough*, 10,000 B.C.) manages to keep this ship afloat just barely enough for me to buy into it. Unlike his film-spectacle counterparts (Michael Bay [Transformers, Armageddon, and Bad Boys II]), Emmerich at least tries to move beyond sex-appeal and glitz. And thank God he holds the camera still so we can at least see the mayhem. And mayhem there is a-plenty. As far as disaster films go, this one will be hard to top. Everything, and I mean everything is torn up, torn down, crushed, swallowed, or just annihilated. But that's what we paid to see, right? And this film delivers every penny's worth. What I like is that the writers (Roland Emmerich and Harald Klosser) still make an effort to do their jobs. It would have been so easy to toss the story aside and make every moment just another big-screen spectacle, but I can respect them by adding layers and layers of conflict as the earth is being destroyed. Sure, we're talking cliched and standard conflict, but conflict nonetheless. The nail-biting scenes aren't just which piece of the crumbling building will fall on which character, the writers actually make the effort to think of new hurdles to overcome. Yes, some of it is typical fare like: the door won't shut, or the plane's running out of gas, but hey, I give them an A for effort (or is that an E?). Some complained that this movie was too long (158 min), but I'm glad it was longer than expected. It gave them time to wrap up all the loose ends, and create an ending that, while wasn't unexpected, was certainly worth waiting for. Silly? Sort of. Carnage of the highest level? Yes. Mayhem? You got it. Worth seeing on the big screen? I can't imagine it will be as nail-biting on the small screen -- but there are plenty of nail-biting scenes that will keep your manicurist in business. (P.S. Why is John Cusack in this film? I don't know. I stopped asking these questions long ago -- but he works somehow. Oh yeah, and keep your eye out for the crazy old coot who happens to know everything -- every disaster movie needs one) |
posted by Josh C at
6:37 PM
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