Guest Review: 2012 (2009)

by ScottDS

What better way to ring in the new year (and, uh, the new month) than by discussing a movie made four years ago that has now been rendered obsolete? Yes, we’ll be looking at Roland Emmerich’s disaster movie to end all disaster movies: 2012. The short version of the review is this: “F--- this movie.” For the longer version, please... read on. [smile]

First, allow me to quote from Roger Ebert’s infamous review of North. I feel it’s more than appropriate here:

“I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.”

Now that we’ve got that out of the way... 2012 speculates that the Mayan calendar is correct and that Earth will experience a cataclysm in late 2012. Apparently, “the neutrinos coming from the sun have mutated into a new kind of nuclear particle.” Yes, that’s a line from the film. The neutrinos are emanating from a large solar flare and are causing the temperature of the Earth’s core to rapidly increase. Geologist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) brings this information to White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt), who then informs President Thomas Wilson (played by Danny Glover, and NOT Back to the Future actor Thomas F. Wilson). Wilson and other world leaders initiate a project to ensure mankind’s survival, including the construction of huge “arks” in Tibet, along with the stowing away of valuable works of art and other treasures. Tickets are offered to the richest people on the planet for a cool billion euros.

While on a camping trip in Yellowstone with his kids, failed sci-fi writer-slash-limo driver Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) encounters a conspiracy theorist (Woody Harrelson at his stoner best) who tells him about the 2012 phenomenon. Jackson and his kids return to LA just as the s--- starts hitting the fan. They manage to escape as the city falls apart around them, with Jackson’s ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and Kate’s boyfriend Gordon (Thomas McCarthy) in tow. After they learn about the arks, they land in Las Vegas and secure transport with Jackson’s boss Yuri, a Russian billionaire, and Yuri’s trophy girlfriend. They arrive in China and stow away on one of the arks. After waaay too much chaos and carnage, along with CGI earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis, the arks make it to the Cape of Good Hope and the world begins again.

After watching this film for the first time, my reaction was similar to that of an online reviewer who labeled it “cinematic waterboarding.” Let’s start with Roland Emmerich. He co-wrote and directed Independence Day, a fun movie that still has its fans (I’m one of them). Now... imagine if: a.) Independence Day was longer and even more technically and scientifically incoherent, b.) the scenes of destruction featured not only big special effects but tiny CGI people screaming and falling to their deaths, c.) included about three or four more sequences of destruction, each one more mind-numbing than the last, and d.) they killed off Jeff Goldblum’s father for no reason at all.

2012 is a sadistic movie and it doesn’t know when to stop. Where one or two shots of a building crumbling to the ground might do, this movie gives us seven or eight such shots, all longer than they should be, and all with people fleeing for their lives. Jackson and his family escape LA during an Earth crust displacement via limousine, which must have the best suspension system devised by man. To be fair, it’s entertaining to watch once, but it really is like playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Fault), except you’re not playing – you’re watching your friend play. And he’s better than you. And he won’t give up the controller! It becomes overwhelming after awhile. Sure, we get some perfunctory character scenes that help provide breathing room, but with this movie, the disasters are so frequent, you can set your watch to them. Tech stuff is mostly top-notch, though this is one film where it’s obvious that what we’re seeing is fake, simply because there’s so much of it!!

The acting is fine for what this movie is. It’s nice to see John Cusack playing an everyman again. Ejiofor (who played the villain in Serenity) is too good for this movie – he’s just so gosh darn earnest and truthful. But he’s good and you root for him, because we like earnest and truthful people and we want them to succeed. Platt is good as the Chief of Staff and, when compared to most bureaucratic villains in movies like this, his character gets a little more to work with. (I mean, he’s no Robert Wagner in Airport ’79!) In addition to the mayhem, there’s even a slight subplot involving political subterfuge and Harrelson’s character mentions the mysterious deaths of scientists who wanted to reveal the truth before the governments of the world were ready to do so. It’s much ado about nothing and it just adds to the already-exorbitant running time. Oh, and the film also introduces us to Ejiofor’s character’s dad, only to kill him off three scenes later! (Oddly, the Blu-Ray includes an alternate ending where the guy lives – I guess this was deemed “too optimistic” for theater audiences.)

There are also supporting turns by the lovely Thandie Newton as the President’s daughter and love interest for Ejiofor, Star Trek: Enterprise actor John Billingsley (too good for the material, per usual) as a scientist, and Stephen McHattie (Pontypool and one of the best Trek episodes ever made) as an ark captain. Glover is okay as the president but not as good as Morgan Freeman was in Deep Impact. One critic pointed out that, while we obviously have no problem electing a black president, we’d never elect one with Glover’s lisp! [smile] Lastly, there’s Thomas McCarthy as Gordon, Cusack’s ex-wife’s boyfriend. Usually in pop culture, the boyfriend/stepfather/etc. is a total dick. But not here – he’s a good man and the kids like him. So the movie has to go ahead and kill him off... in the worst way possible! The ark’s boarding gate jams and Gordon is crushed to death by the gears!

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to get “ugly American” for a minute. This film appears to be a symptom of Hollywood’s increasing reliance on the foreign market. We’re introduced to characters from other countries, who speak in subtitles, played by actors we have no familiarity with. As a result, there’s no distinction or priority – some of these characters show up later and it’s like, “Oh, I didn’t know the monk in Tibet was gonna be important!” That sort of thing. The first ten minutes are a little disorienting the first time you see it. Who are these people? What are they doing? I can appreciate the mystery, not to mention the need to keep disaster preparations of this magnitude under wraps, but there’s a dissonance on display and in a movie where there’s enough insanity to come, you kinda want to comfort your audience at the beginning, so they’re prepared for later.

What happened, Mr. Emmerich? You used to be a human being! Independence Day was a fun, summer popcorn flick with a host of likable characters and a well-paced story. This movie, on the other hand, is a perpetuum mobile and I hate it.

“Kind of galling when you realize that nutbags with cardboard signs had it right the whole time.”