2012 is a guilty pleasure of a blockbuster in which the end of the world is turned into a two-and-a-half-hour roller coaster ride. The film has outstanding visual effects but ultimately lacking in terms of plot. A film which shouldn't be taken too seriously but enjoyed none the less. Roland Emmerich, the special effects, disaster porn wizard, creates the mother of all storms to level such landmarks as the Washington Monument, the White House, the Vegas strip, and Vatican City
Master of Disaster
If this film is about producing 'popcorn film' entertainment, than it succeeds. If it tries to produce witty dialogue with a significant back story, then it fails miserably. But is that a bad thing. Sometimes its nice to shut off one's brain to the cares and hard aches of the world to sit back and enjoy the world crumble upon itself.
The film uses the Mayan's end-of-the-world theory as a jumping off point. From there, it is utter catastrophe. The first hour is spent setting up the cataclysmic event introducing scientists who warn of the danger, the rise in the core's temperatures, and the introduction of the main characters, which is followed by two hours of the Earth being hammered into oblivion.
In 2009, Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Adrian Helmsley, the scientific advisor to the President, played by Danny Glover, uncovers a situation where the sun is heating the earth's core, which will cause the Earth's plates to shift. The President, along with other leaders, collaborate to begin a secret project intended to ensure the continuity of human life, strategically choosing thousands of people for admission on a series of gigantic arks to be constructed in the Himalayas.
John Cusack’s Jackson Curtis, a down-on-his-luck writer who works as a limousine driver in Los Angeles, is essentially a toned down version of Tom Cruise’s Ray Ferrier from War Of The Worlds. He takes his kids up to Yellowstone National Park for a camping trip, where he meets Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson). Charlie informs Jackson of the end of the world brought on by rapidly rising sea levels, erupting volcanoes, and earthquakes topping the Richter scale to correspond with the end of the Mayan calender.
Jackson doesn't take any chances renting a plane for his family, including his ex-wife played by Amanda Peet and her boyfriend played by Thomas McCarthy, to escape the oncoming disaster. They escape just in time as Los Angeles falls into the sea. The situation presents a theme typical in Emmerich's disaster films where the earth faces some disastrous force (whether aliens or mother nature), and an average joe must protect his family by any means necessary.
The special effects without question are amazing and the reason to see this film. Watching the Curtis family make their way through crumbling Los Angeles whether by ground or air, although highly unlikely, is a thing of beauty. Yellowstone National Park explodes in a flaming Armageddon, and a tsunami sends the USS John F. Kennedy hurdling into the White House.
Final Thought
Although the dialogue is laughable, 2012 succeeds due to the special effects. A true popcorn film if their ever was one. And the ending is standard Hollywood formula, as most would expect from a film like this. The film succeeds in scoring the highest kill count in the history of cinema: all but four hundred thousand people on the Earth were spared.
