|
2012
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Released: 2009
Starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton,
Oliver Platt, Thomas McCarthy, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover, Liam James
Review by Nafa
----------------------------------------------------------
"We're all dumb smiles, we're
all near misses."
-Ladies of Death Row Swimsuit
Calendar
Two-zero-one-two. The film is
out. The film is loud. The film is big. The film is bad. The film is fun.
The film is frenetic. The film is cheesy. The film is stupid. The film is
incredible. The film is…
There are three relevant personal points I should bring up first. One, I am
a sucker for apocalyptic end-of-the-world films and any movie that has to do
with impending doom about to fall on humanity. As a child I grew up on a
healthy diet of catastrophe films -
Escape The Planet Of The Apes,
Meteor,
Earthquake,
The Towering Inferno,
The Poseidon Adventure,
Herbie Goes Bananas
- and so whenever there’s an
Independence Day,
Mars Attacks,
Armageddon,
Deep Impact,
or The Core
in the vicinity, for better or for worse, I am there. The second point, and
often hand in glove with cataclysmic films, I love films about prophecy and
religion. Not necessarily in the everyday application of a belief system but
in the Hand of God being the device to smite the wicked. When I was a wee
lad my mom would take me to those
‘In Search Of’ type films
that our local theater’s Saturday matinee would play. Give me a film full of
Ecclesiology and I’m, no pun intended, in Heaven - think
The Prophecy.
The third and last point is that I am an annual pass holder to Universal
Studios and Islands of Adventure, and have been for nearly a decade.
2012.
When I saw the first teaser 8 months or so ago I was hooked. The wave
washing over the Himalayas…yeah, that’s what was missing in films for too
long. There were no volcanic explosions crushing Winnebagos in
Benjamin Button,
nor were there hot Russian women drowned in
Shrek III.
From the get go, 2012
is not so much a film for theaters as it is a film made to go along with a
motion simulation ride. Throw any hopeful thoughts for plot, logic, reality,
or character development out the window, because you’re not getting any of
that. (Didn’t anyone question the driving distance between Los Angeles and
Yellowstone Park, which according to the national parks website is ‘1059.5
miles, Driving time: 16 hours 17 minutes’?) The science - p’shaw! Sure it
was fun to completely sit and debunk all the scientific mumbo-jumbo in
The Day After Tomorrow,
but if you try to do that with this film you’ll either have nearly 3 hours
of frustration or an aneurysm. I cannot stress this enough that if you want
to have a good time watching this film check your brain at the door. Either
that or make out through the entire thing. Otherwise you will not have any
fun. It’s exactly the same kind of film that they make to play during theme
park rides as part of the motion simulator. It’s not so much of a passive
movie but an active one, one where you find yourself holding on to the arms
of the chair a little tighter or peering away from the screen to keep from
falling out of your seat - no bones about it being thought-provoking, it’s
just pure fast entertainment.
Once you completely prepare yourself for the movie watching experience, the
film is pretty awesome. I say ‘awesome’ because ‘spectacular’ or ‘epic’ just
don’t work. It’s as if the film was written by a team of 9-year-old boys.
Seriously, I see the pitch going something like this (spoiler
warning):
OK, there’s a guy and he
writes books but he also drives limos and he goes to a park but then has to
go home and he gets his family and they drive as buildings are falling on
them and they find a plane and take off and Los Angeles falls in the ocean
under them but they go back to the park and get in a motor home that blows
up because Wyoming explodes so they get back in the plane and go to Las
Vegas and get in a bigger plane with Russians and go to Hawaii but it’s all
burned up so they go to China because the Earth has shifted all the
continents around and then they sneak on seaspaceships before the waves come
over Mt. Everest and they save the day in the water and go to Africa. Can we
have some Oreos?
Seriously, that’s the movie. Sure, there are side plots and the whole
convoluted ‘he saved the day’ climax (to which no one points out that the
duder endangered the day to begin with and probably is responsible for the
deaths of hundreds who wouldn’t have died had he not been there to screw
things up in the first place), but it’s all the salad bar at a meat buffet -
not what you’re paying for so why fill up on it? And this film is full of
meat. Buildings fall, gaping burning abysses appear, the sky rains fire and
stones, the sea boils, the sky rages - it’s all pretty much nonstop.
At this point I do have to mention that peppered in places throughout the
film are unexpected little pangs of…tragedy. This film is quite good at
taking a character, not developing them, and tossing them to the side
without a further care from the filmmakers nor any from the audience.
However, there are a couple of fairly tragic death scenes that will catch
you off guard and you may find yourself wiping a little tear away. Maybe no,
you heartless bastards, but maybe. I was not expecting that from
FIREWATEREXPLOSOFEST ’09. Another
spoiler alert:
And speaking of deaths, there is
one that needs to be revealed because in this over-the-top surreal carnage
one moment stands out as a complete and utter surreal sequence. The
President of the United States of America is standing outside in the dark
and sees a giant form take shape to the east, filling the eastern sky. He
can just make out on it something sliding around, something metallic…it’s
then you realize it’s a megatsunami wave and the object bouncing on it is an
aircraft carrier. Yup, this rolls right over Washington DC, the White House,
the President and all, but the scene was filmed so silently, so beautifully,
that it maximizes the creepiness factor ten-fold. It’s now up there among my
favorite disaster scenes ever, and every bit as creepy to me as the
burning train
from War Of The Worlds.
The cast has a chemistry, but that’s not to say that all chemistry is good.
John Cusack basically plays John Cusack in a disaster where the Earth wants
it’s $2. Woody Harrelson is great as the stoned lunatic fringe. Danny Glover
is getting-to-old-for-this-shit as the President but great as ever. The
transcendent Thandie Newton is always good though kind of out of place here.
Oliver Platt is a smarmy dick, and that’s not some sort of Mediterranean
food. And I think this is the first movie I’ve ever seen that has Amanda
Peet in it and she doesn’t get naked - I guess I’m a bit disappointed in
that.
For better or for worse,
2012 isn’t a great film.
It’s not an intelligent film. Hell, it’s not even that much of an 'End
Times' film. However, it’s fun and it’s what was needed at a time when it
seems that every Indie film that gets made is ‘genius’. This is a huge
multi-million dollar indulgent slap in the testes; critics be damned. It’s
all dumb smiles from the 9-year-old in you and for all the near misses that
the cars and planes and ships encounter along the way. Oh, and especially
for all the direct hits.
Links
2012 Trailer
|
