Sentimental glop -

Rating: 2/10 (11 January 2013)

Tsunami hits, 240k people die, let's make a movie about the rich British family who suffer horrible trauma (injuries! non permanent, tho...separation! for a few days...fatigue! dirt!) and who manage, somehow, to piece their lives back together once reunited, whisked by private plane covered by insurance to Singapore for medical care, then home to UK to resume their luxe little lives. OK, good for them, comes of living in the 1st world, having tons of disposable income, etc. But it makes for a boring movie, which it shouldn't have been since it's based on real events. I kept waiting to FEEL something, at least something other than wow! at the special effects. A much more interesting focus would be to delve into the lives of some of the local populace, the ones not-so-rich, not-so-white, no-so-insured. The ones, say, who lost homes, families, communities, livelihoods, health, virtually EVERYTHING that matters, and somehow neglected to have some Zurich-based insurance company covering all misfortunes. That scenario happened too, for real - and in numbers vastly surpassing the Tourist Trauma that is all this pricey film appears to care about. Those stories would be vastly more interesting, and would have made a far superior film.