They forgot the tsunami

Rating: 2/10 (13 January 2013)

I just don't understand how this movie got good reviews.
Imagine if James Cameron had filmed The Titanic entirely as closeups of people suffering in the hallways!!! Thats how the makers of The Impossible would have done The Titanic!!!! Closeups of people suffering as the hallways filled with water, then closeups of people suffering in lifeboats. With an initial 10 second opening shot of the ship, the ocean and other passengers.
I expected that this movie would be about one family's experiences set against a backdrop of unique natural tragedy that caused 400,000 deaths and left 500,00 homeless. After all, thats what made their story unique. Unfortunately the makers of this film pretty much omitted the tsunami from this movie. Also omitted, the ocean, beaches and all the people in Asia.
While the actual tsunami was a natural catastrophe of epic proportions, occurring in one of the worlds most exotic, beautiful and tranquil locations, the tsunami is only seen in this film as a wave entering the swimming pool area of the hotel.
After that its pretty much all closeups of Naomi Watts suffering and screaming. Except for the cuts and bruises, she could be in any puddle of water, say in a bad rain at a Florida Motel. Strangely, even though hundreds of thousands of other people were swept away, Watts is always alone, under muddy water, walking out of a swamp, sitting in a tree. She and her son are pretty much the only ones in the first half of the movie. Nor are there any buildings, cars, or anything else that might have been hit by the wave.
When she reaches the hospital there are a couple of dozen extras to represent the million people injured and dead. The hospital scene could have been filmed on Saturday night at any Brooklyn Hospital except that, in the movie, the scene was too calm. After 45 minutes of this we get closeups of Ewan McGregor yelling and suffering. Thats pretty much it, yelling and suffering, with cameras on their faces, almost never a reference to the scale and circumstances of the unique and colossal tragedy thats the basis for this film. We're left with one family having a bad day somewhere with palm trees.