2012: is really pretty bad. Not really bad, just predictably bad. You will know the basic storyline: solar flares superheat neutrinos which destabilize the earth’s crust setting off earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. The earth is more of less destroyed in the process. Meanwhile our planet’s leaders race against time to build a bunch of arks to ensure the survival of the species (plus assorted giraffes, elephants etc.), or at least a reasonable cross-section of the wealthiest and cutest members of the species. Amongst the mayhem we follow frustrated fiction writer, John Cusak and his family, and geophysicist Chiwetel Ejiofer.
Every cliche gamely makes an appearance, the dialogue is atrocious (seriously, it is hard to believe writers were employed on this project) and we see endless scenes of CGI-manufactured destruction. There are no less than three scenes in which an airplane races down a runway as the runway is destroyed behind it. The action sequences are the reason to see the movie, but even they begin to pall after a while. There is something fundamentally fucked about a movie which encourages us to cheer when five people are saved as California falls into the sea and millions die, or to see the conclusion as uplifting when a few hundred thousand survive and 6.5 billion die. Whatever. John Cusack reconnects with his ex-wife and kids, so how bad can the end of the world be?
Obviously one has low expectations from this kind of movie, but its inability to rise above the obvious and the cliched is still disappointing.
A comedian remarked that the Mayans meant to warn us not about the end of the world in 2012 but about the movie 2012 . Why didn’t you listen?
When will someone stop this untalented prick Roland Emmerich from making movies? I mean at least Irwin Allen gave you the spectacle of bizarre casting–say, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Robert Wagner and Fred Astaire all looking uncomfortable in the same movie….or aging old Hollywood types like Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner running through the ravaged streets of Los Angeles.
But, hey, yes, at least another nuclear family gets saved. Hooray! presumably, John overcomes his writer’s block and finally understands What Life is All About? fucking john cusack–take a look at Nick Cage, John, and see your future.
Speaking of Nicholas Cage, has anyone seen Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans?
My favorite part* of 2012 was when, as Los Angeles crumbled and fell and exploded in glorious spectacle, Emmerich kept cutting back to the family — first to the strangely buddy-film chatter between ex-patriarch Cusack and new-patriarch McCarthy, then SPECTACLE DESTRUCTION PEOPLE DYING WHAT FUN, then to close-up of the cute-as-a-button daughter with tears straming from her eyes. This dizzying confusion of tones almost made the film worth it for me.
Almost. Well, not so almost. In fact, not at all. But it was the one interesting thing about the film, besides Woody Harrelson’s batshit performance.
*obviously by “favorite part” the writer is defining a vanishingly-small comparative set, singularly, as well as affectively, distinct from “all the other parts of 2012.”
unlike chris and mike i have not fallen so low as to watch 2012. but that’s only because it has not yet been released on dvd/cable.
I haven’t seen Bad Lieutenant II but here is some heart-rending news: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/nov/17/nicolas-cage
now that 2012 has been released on dvd i have watched it. and i quite enjoyed it. i noted that the people of africa, south and latin america and most of asia will not get to be part of the continuation of the species. the good news, however, is that african and asian animals will have been saved. also, the presumably empty, risen african continent will once again be the home of the (re)birth of mankind as the surviving americans and western europeans (and the chinese and japanese) will colonize it.
lovely.
i forgot to mention that the list of non-survivors also includes people who commit adultery. also killed off is the step-father figure, thus paving the way for the reuniting of the original nuclear family. the kids and wife forget about the dead dude in less than a month. but it’s okay, because he’s played by the actor who also played the douchebag reporter in season 5 of the wire. also his character performs boob jobs and you know that’s bad because not only does he die but the woman who gets a boob job from him and the man who pays for it also die.
what an inspiring little movie.
my frame of reference goes back to The Poseidon Adventure so I have to ask–how do fat Jewish women, renegade priests and ex-prostitutes fare after the apocalypse?
gio, the important thing, the thing that redeems the film, is that the one dog in it survives.
michael, funny you should ask. there is indeed a luxury liner in the film and we see it hit by a mid-ocean tidal wave. no confirmation of its fate. i look forward to the sequel, 2013 in which george segal (who plays a jazz musician on the ship) will lead a plucky band of survivors to safety in his double bass trying to reach dry land before his supply of depends runs out.
I look forward to it, as long as he rails against god and demands “take me!” before plunging to his death.
Actually, Michael, I think Segal repeatedly jabs a banjo into his crotch while singing “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby.”
yow. But let’s give the guy some props for The Terminal Man and California Split .