Review for 2012

2012 (PG-13)

Release Date: November 13th
Director: Roland Emmerich
Starring: John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

With all of the talk, movies, and books made about the end of the world, “2012” takes the cake. As a disaster movie, it does not disappoint. Who wouldn’t want to pay money to see the coast of California sink into the Pacific, Yellowstone National Park turn into an active supervolcano, or the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy conveniently crush the White House while being carried by a huge wave?

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the president’s scientific advisor who learns of the impending apocalypse early on in the year 2009. Danny Glover portrays the part of President Wilson. He meets with other worldly leaders to discuss the plan of survival, as if survival is even possible at all. That plan, which the audience does not know too much of until the end of the movie, is to build large ships like a modern day “Noah’s ark.” There is even a scene in the movie where helicopters can be seen carrying animals such as giraffes onto these ships. In order to preserve the human race, the government lets important, rich people onto these ships while everyone else is left to die, typical. Oliver Platt plays your typical jerk politician who actually likes the idea of only rich people being allowed to survive. John Cusack plays the heroic role of Jackson Curtis, a divorced man who is trying to salvage whatever kind of a relationship he can with his two kids. There’s nothing like the end of the world to bring you closer to your family. Amanda Peet plays his ex-wife whose current husband is a plastic surgeon as well as an amateur pilot. How convenient is that considering their eventual situation in California where their only way of survival is to fly away from the crumbling earth? Cusack also meets a hilariously crazy man in Yellowstone who is played by Woody Harrelson. He fills Cusack in on the inevitable disasters that are about to take place and even provides him with a map that leads him to the governments’ secret ships. In a nutshell, the apocalypse is supposedly caused by neutrinos from the sun heating up the Earth’s core, which causes its crust to shift, which then leads to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis. The government, of course, keeps it a secret from the world way up until the very second people start falling into the cracks of the Earth. Important people are saved while the rest are out of luck. Then there’s a lot (almost too many) close calls for the main characters.

The movie has to be looked at in two different ways: an action-packed, over-the-top destruction movie and then, of course, a regular movie with all the basic elements—plot, picture, acting, etc. As an action movie it was amazing. “2012” had some of the best special effects I had ever seen in a movie. It would be almost cruel not to award major points for the amount of detailed effects that were used in order to destroy the entire world convincingly. About one and a half hours of nothing but the destruction of cities and important landmarks will not leave you bored for a second. However, as a movie movie, “2012” did not live up to its potential. Although the acting was not horrible, the weakest point of the movie was its basic plot. The script rushed through the science and explanation of how and why the world is coming to an end, and even though the description and trailers for the movie emphasize the prediction of the Mayan calendar, it is hardly mentioned in the movie at all. The dialogue had no complexity and was, at times, very cheesy. About an hour into the never-ending destruction you realize that the movie was not made to present logical facts that prove any kind of theories about the controversial, oncoming apocalypse, but only to entertain with crumbling cities, earthquakes, tsunamis, and a poorly developed storyline of a divorced couple and their two children. But I guess Emmerich couldn’t waste too much time on facts when there is more hell to unleash upon the planet, something he never hesitates to do in almost all of his movies. Towards the end, the movie drags on, some of the scenes are utterly ridiculous and there is a bit too much cheesy dialogue where it is not needed nor wanted, especially in a situation when the people are minutes from death. Stop talking and save the ship already, for the love of God!

I definitely recommend seeing “2012.” It is a step up from Emmerich’s previous films like “The Day After Tomorrow.” It is a bit long but not boring, the action scenes make up for most of the weak plot, and even though you won’t be learning much about the predictions of the real 2012, you’ll still enjoy watching the world end with superb special effects that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Trailer below: