It's nearly impossible not to like this movie. It's a really good movie!!!

Rating: 8/10 (10 August 2013)

It's impossible to know during the first moments of a disaster, if you're even going to survive, or not. It's impossible to know if your love ones will end up dead or alive. Yet, there is a chance of possible results. It's call hope. Every living man wishes that them, and their love ones would never be harm by any tragic event. Hope is needed for surviving. This movie teaches people to believe in hope. The Impossible is an English-language Spanish disaster drama directed by Juan Antonio Bayona and written by Sergio G. Sánchez. It is based on María Belón's and her family's experience of the real life event of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The movie says it's a true story, but the movie changes a lot about Maria Belon's experience to the point, it seems less like a true story, and more like Hollywood trying to exploit a real life tragedy event to make money. The 2004 Tsunami is still in recent memory to a lot of victims when the movie was created in 2012. It's not like making a film about 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, where most of the victims are now dead. This only happen a few years ago. It still fresh in people's mind. So to see a Hollywood movie about it, is a bit too soon in my opinion. Still, at less, they produce a film with respect to all the victims, rather than offending most of them with a silly plot. The plot mostly stay with the source material. The biggest different is that the real life family were Spanish. In the film, they are played by English actors. While all the English actors did a swell job, in my opinion. Spanish actors would have made this movie more realistic. It's not like they couldn't find good Spanish actors. There are so many Spanish actors that I can think off my head to play these roles. I felt it was Spain's movie industry copping out, to appeal to with a broader audience, since most films industry shows white people as the main parts. Even some of the most Hispanic actors are chosen for roles because how light skin they are. It's rare to see dark skin actors in main role parts, and often they play second fiddle to those actors who are light-skin. I just don't like the concept of whitewashing. For a movie about, the Indian Tsunami disaster, there is a very few dark side Thais in this film. Most of them have little to no speaking parts, and just add in the background, so we know we're in Thailand. I know 5,000 people died in Thailand and half of those were mainly white Europeans. In Khao Lak where the film was located, almost all who died were foreign white tourists, most Thai deaths were in Phang Nga, Phuket and Krabi almost 50km away. I know it's not a documentary about the Tsunami, it is the story of one family, but I just thought as less, they can at less do, is give the Thais a voice in the film mentioning the struggle of the native people after this disaster, too. I heard that nearly all the foreign and Thai extras where actual survivors of this tragic event so why not. Any ways, the movie has English physician Maria Bennet (Naomi Watts), her Scottish husband Henry (Ewan McGregor) and their sons Lucas (Tom Holland), Tomas (Samuel Joslin), and Simon (Oakley Pendergrast), are on Christmas holiday in Khao Lak, Thailand, in 2004. The tsunami triggered by an earthquake floods the area with overwhelming destructive power and all of them are separate from each other, not knowing if they are alive or dead. Naomi Watts spent most of the movie, injury, and barely alive. She does a great job in this role. I was happy to hear that she was nominated for Oscar for Best Actress award. I have to also give big props to Tom Holland, who really gave this movie, the heart it needed. There was a commanding scene where he can't find his mother at the hospital. Ewan McGregor give one great powerful scene with the cell phone sequence. It nearly had me in tears. The ending was a bit disappointing as they make themselves seem like they don't care about Thailand, and look like rich snobs. The movie should had ended at the hospital, not there on the plane. I know its air ambulance, but gees, it looks awkward as they look like they were escaping on a private jet first class. I have to say the disaster effects were astounding. The tsunami was recreated with a mixture of digital effects and real water surges using miniatures that were destroyed by a huge wave created in a water tank in Spain. I like how the director was committed to working with real water, rather than a computer generated wave, because he wanted the story to be authentic. Seeing Naomi Watts, and Tom Holland in the massive water tanks gave the movie, its realistic point. The whole Tsunami sequence was just too damn scary! The parts where Maria was being cut up by sharp items was tough to get through. The shot of her leg wound, and the follow up shot of her breasts that looked like they were hanging from her skin was just hard to watch. It is one of the most frightening re-creation of a real life disaster, I have ever seen. Overall: It's nice to see a movie with a lot of hope, rather than watching a depressing film of lost. It's one of the few disaster films that make you care for all the main characters in the film. I have to say, go watch it indeed. You will believe in hope after seeing this film