"Lucas, Lucas, Lucas!" "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!" A Really Ridiculous Movie in Several Respects

Rating: 1/10 (9 January 2014)

After they survive the tsunami, his indulgent mom calls Lucas so many times that it will drive you up a tree, which is where the pair finally find themselves after being hit by the wave and nearly dragged out to sea in the backwash. Somehow, they didn't drown outright, which comes off as a tad hard to swallow. The experience scratched up the kid and hurt the mom more seriously, but the worst part was when a local villager drug her through the mud in a misguided effort to save her. That, I seem to recall, is what made her absolutely filthy and she never got cleaned off, not even when they were delivered to a hospital. There, she ended up in surgery, still muddied of course, even though the doctors and nurses were decked out in scrubs and masks and both they and the operating room were spotless. The contradiction between the filthy patient and the sterile surgical team was rather startling and silly. Movies and television don't understand the first frigging thing about sterile procedure, and I include in that pointed criticism the stupid show called "ER" that made George Clooney's career take off. Just because a health care professional or a detective dons latex gloves doesn't mean they can touch any nonsterile object (like a gruesome corpse), grab their pen and notebook or a doorknob, and then remove said gloves and regrab the same now contaminated pen and notebook or doorknob. If you don't understand why, then I don't know how to explain it to you any plainer than that. It's why public restrooms still have a door that opens in rather than out, despite other improvements that limit cross contamination. You have to grab the door handle to exit, and you must have noticed how many people simply don't bother washing their hands after using the facilities. If, after washing your own hands, you don't grab that handle with a paper towel, then you just got that guys germs all over your hand, you know, the dumb slob who just emerged from the stall after making a real stink. Think about it. In any case, wouldn't someone have cleaned these people off at least minimally when they were given a bed in a hospital? And wouldn't a person brought into surgery certainly have been properly prepped for the experience? Not in this movie. The entire family was muddied from the getgo and still muddy by the time they hopped on a jet for Singapore. It was absurd. "Hey, folks, just allow our seats to absorb all that disgusting filth. Considering what a bad day you've had, we won't insist that you minimally clean up before boarding." Not to harp on this issue too much, but one of the first things you should do after you are caught in a catastrophe and survived is to clean up. Those cuts and scratches and abrasions will become infected, especially in floodwaters, which are frequently swarming with bacteria. I guess they forgot about that niggling little problem when they made this dumb flick. Better to leave the actors "realistically filthy" so as to emphasize the extent of the terrible ordeal they had just experienced and the level of shock they are exhibiting. That major objection aside, this movie was schmaltzy, unrealistic, and rather stupid. In no way does it communicate the extent of the real tragedy that occurred that day, when upwards of 200,000 people were killed. The best scene is the flashback of the moment the tsunami hit the resort, in which the mother tumbles over and over in the water, gets hit by objects, and somehow doesn't need to breathe. It's better than the depiction of the tragedy when it occurred, by the time of which you are totally sick of the family and don't much care what happens to them.