2012: The thrill takes it all
Film: 2012 (U/A)
Cast: John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Director: Roland Emerich
Rating: ***
Roland Emerich is the new father of disaster movies. After bringing us Independence Day, Godzilla and The Day after Tomorrow, he plays god once again to give us this thrillingly manifested, CG-encrusted global annihilator – a concoction that is vacuously spectacular and full of edge-of-the-seat excitement. Harold Kloser scripts this demolition drive on the basis of an interpretation of the Mayan calendar that points to an earthly catastrophe on 12-21-2012 and for those familiar with Nostradamus’ warnings, this will seem to be a visible portent; a kind of doomsday-ahead-warning that may come true…if we don’t pay enough attention to the incredibly stupid way in which we misuse our planet’s resources.
The film begins it’s foray into the future, deep down in a Naga copper mine, India, where Indian Astrophysicist (Jimmy Mistry) shows US scientist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) the disturbing evidence of the unusual heating-up of the earth’s core. Helmsley reports back to president Wilson (Danny Glover), warning of an imminent global catastrophe. An emergency meeting between world leaders is held, and a decision is made regarding the building of gigantic arks in China to save a mere representative sprinkling (those with money and power) of a vast humanity.
But calculations go awry, decisions are changed and disaster strikes much earlier and faster than expected, testing every nation’s preparedness. First Los Angeles gets toppled into the sea, then Las Vegas, Yellowstone National Park, Washington, DC, the Vatican, India, Tibet and towards the end, a giant cruise ship. The sequences are rendered for maximum effect – CG is imposed on almost every frame. It's all about the FX carnage- The sequence were California is destroyed is quite mind-boggling and the one with Cusack flying through a couple of collapsing skyscrapers is edge-of-the-seat stuff. It all comes at you with eye-popping regularity.
Emerich’s two-hour-thirty-plus minutes’ narrative spiel has very little story to set-up, he establishes the plot links quite spiffily before venturing into the cataclysmic with an eager-to-please flourish. Obviously, he has had to employ every single disaster cliché, but he does it so smartly, that we barely have time to dwell on it’s seen-before quality. It’s the final protracted moments in the film where Jackson Curtis (Cusack) tries to play saviour that the silliness shows up in ingratiating fashion. The narrative abstains from any kind of preaching, there is very little depth in the telling and Emerich’s point of view remains hidden behind all that superficial gloss. This is a film that is visually satisfying no doubt; just don’t expect to exercise your grey matter all that much!
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