You lot make me laugh

Rating: 6/10 (12 February 2013)

The amount of 'reviewers' here that either
a) expected this to be some sort of documentary cataloguing the fate of hundreds of thousands of Thai and other Asian people in their devastated homeland, or
b) launched off into 20+ paragraphs of eloquence decrying various features of the movie in a badly disguised orgy of self-gratification. I bet you read and re-read your own reviews and get a kick out of how clever you are don't you? And here's us thinking reviews were for the benefit of the reader...ha flippin' ha.
Here's what I found after seeing this movie:
It was about a privileged white family - yeah, I could tell from the movie poster it wasn't going to be about our poor Asian fellow beings.
The cinematography was 15% breath-taking and 85% awful. Far too much crammed into the actors face and being shaken around. Sit well back in the theatre is my advice here. When two characters are talking quietly standing by a bedside, the cinematographer doesn't need to shake the camera about to create tension. I hope this tiresome, amateurish trend ends eventually.
I was moved despite myself. No one likes to be manipulated, least of all by Hollywood, but the oldest son, played by Tom Holland was quite superb and even Ewan McGregor had his moments. I nearly shed a tear with him though I'm considering denying it from now on.
So what if there's a happy ending, that must be why the film has had such a long stay at the local theatre. No one wants to see a story of a family get obliterated, we had enough of that on the news back in 2004.
The tsunami effects were amazing and I found myself gripping the arm rests without realizing. I would be very careful about letting any 12 year-old of mine go to see this on their own, while not gory it has LOTS of implied injuries taking place, a lot of visible wounds, and a lot of terribly frightened kids and adults being thrown and battered about in the muddy water.
Despite the annoying camera-abuse I was glad I went to the cinema and saw this flick.