Emotional, but unsatisfying

Rating: 3/10 (25 November 2009)

I liked Independence Day, and expected some of the same kind of fun out of this movie. Didn't get it. Lot's of special effects and emotional playing around, but it didn't tie down the idea. After spending a lot of time on developing an interesting idea, the movie fails to generate the archetypical ending of "Worlds in Collision" that is: People get left behind and the Captain of the ship is the guy in charge, not civilians.
Spoiler here: An absolute deadline is coming, and you are the captain of a ship that has to make sure that the people on board are safe. An emotional passenger suddenly decides that you, as the captain, have to do something that can threaten the entire ship. You as a captain violate your checklist and do what the emotional passenger says to do. Umm, no you don't. It is the ship first, boarded souls second and forget about thirds. By failing to accept the natural momentum of events, the movie fails to show what humanity is all about: Survival.
If the writers hadn't tried to load the movie with phony emotional decisions, decisions that in real life would have ended in failure. As a result the movie lost it's center, that is: Hard Decisions that have to be made at the end of civilization.
Instead the movie becomes: Let's all play nice and it will all work out.
Sorry, physics, gravity and command decisions don't work that way during times of duress. With 15 minutes before an event that isn't well modeled is going to occur, is not a time to have to deal with unruly mobs.
So basically 2012 becomes a myth that demonstrates what is wrong with California and the United States: The inability to make hard decisions.
The movie run time could have been trimmed by 30 minutes if this concept had been followed, and it would have been more satisfying to listen to the conversations after the mob was destroyed.
Confusing discussions via video links with leaders also lead to confusion, and the emotional President scenes could have been cut with no harm to the confused story in the film.
Lot's of good flight scenes, really fun family, and good emotional roller coaster.
Finally, if it is the end of the world, I would take higher ratio of women to men then that which the film chose. Waaay to many males...