Salt Lake Tribune Review
When a movie sends Los Angeles sliding into the Pacific, blows up Yellowstone and moves the magnetic south pole to Wisconsin, what hope does a movie critic have to stop it?
No, one must accept
Roland Emmerich's "2012" for what it is: a big, loud, end-is-nigh disaster movie, made by a director who already has two acts of cinematic global destruction under his belt -- "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow" -- and is eager to top himself.
Emmerich does outdo his old record for creatively wrecking landmarks, wiping out Los Angeles, sending Las Vegas into a chasm, toppling the Washington Monument and the White House, and destroying religious landmarks such as the Vatican, Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue and a Tibetan monastery. (Notably, one religious icon not destroyed onscreen is Mecca's Kaaba, though Emmerich reportedly considered such a shot before opting to avoid a fatwa.)
But while Emmerich and screenwriting partner
Harald Kloser (their previous joint effort was, yikes, "10,000 B.C.") work hard to find new and different ways to flatten the world, they also saddle us with characters who are already flat.
After a prologue in which White House geologist Adrian Helmsley (
Chiwetel Ejiofor) gives the president (
Danny Glover) a dire warning about the planet's future, the movie introduces us to struggling author and divorced dad Jackson Curtis (
John Cusack). Curtis takes his kids, Noah (Liam James) and Lily (
Morgan Lily), camping in Yellowstone, only to find his favorite lake evaporated, a secret government base in its place (where Helmsley is working, in one of the script's many forced connections), and a crazed conspiracy theorist (
Woody Harrelson) talking about the Mayan calendar and warnings of the end of days.
Back in L.A., Curtis' ex-wife, Kate (
Amanda Peet), and her new boyfriend, Gordon (
Tom McCarthy), are caught in an earthquake -- shown by a slowly approaching crack in the ground, as if Bugs Bunny had missed that left turn at Albuquerque. Curtis and the kids return home, and all five drive across the disintegrating city and jump into a single-engine plane just as the ground falls from beneath it.
Forget about outrunning fireballs. Apparently, outrunning instantly created canyons and massive ash clouds is the new trend.
Other subplots involve Helmsley and his White House boss (
Oliver Platt) debating whether to tell the public about the impending disaster, Helmsley's musician dad (Blu Mankuma) working a cruise ship with his longtime partner (
George Segal), and the president's daughter (
Thandie Newton) questioning what world leaders are doing to save some small part of humanity.
The problem with "2012" -- besides trafficking in such age-old clichés as seeing billions of people die while a small dog heroically survives -- is that the end of the world doesn't serve a purpose, other than Emmerich's fetish for broken world icons. At least the alien invaders in "Independence Day" and the global climate-change message of "The Day After Tomorrow" offered rallying points for the human race.
In "2012," there's nothing to root against, no recipient to rage against the dying of the light. There's only the spectacle of the world crumbling and the dreary aftermath of cleaning up what's left.
-- Sean P. Means
"2012," The End Has Gotta Be Better Than This
Submitted by: MrIntuition
If "2012" is how the world ends let's hope a better movie is showing when our time is up. Writer/director Roland Emmerich certainly knows how to trash the planet ("Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow") but he's running out of landmarks -- and ideas -- since he's liberally stolen from his own films in this over-long (2 1/2 hours) and formulaic blockbuster that's short on believablity and heavy on sometimes ridiculous computer generated effects. Scientists around the globe, the real one, have rushed to refute the "science" in "2012." Some scenes are just plain laughable, even to us grade school scientists. But I'll not destroy ALL the enjoyment. If nothing else, "2012" is fun in spots thanks to some of the effects involving stuff and landscape blowing and breaking up everywhere -- and I do mean everywhere. The plot starts in 2009 when an American geologist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers that the world is soon coming to an end and President Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover) informs his fellow heads of state that it's all over. Fast forward to 2012 and starving writer Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) takes his kids on vacation in the limo he uses for work (his personal SUV conveniently won't start) and discovers things aren't right in one of the biggest inactive volcano calderas in the world -- Yellowstone Park. They also discover wacky conspiracy theorist Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson) -- anybody remember Randy Quaid in "Independence Day" -- who claims to know all about a global plan to save humanity from the coming end. Jackson starts believing when California starts developing cracks. Oh, ok, more and bigger cracks than usual. Anyway, he rushes home and all hell breaks loose -- pun intended. he grabs his kids, ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet), and her new boyfriend, plastic surgeon and amateur pilot (convenient, eh?) Gordon (Tom McCarthy), for a cartoon-like trip to the Santa Monica airport just ahead of California sliding into the ocean. Would you believe the airplane ride is sillier. And where do they go? It gets dumber and dumber. And how does the plan to save civilization go? As bad as this film is, I don't do spoilers. Does anybody rise above this? (Wow, it's hard avoid puns writing about this.) John Cusack is the glue that holds this mess together. He's almost believable, even in scenes that are seriously more like a Looney Tunes short than a mega-million dollar feature film. Woody Harrelson is over the top as an over-the-top conspiracy theorist. Typecasting? Sure. But he's doing great work this year. Who's bad? Danny Glover is really awful as President Wilson. Without giving everything away, there's a scene where he sees the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy. Wasn't supposed to be funny. I laughed out loud. One of several such scenes in "2012." My advice? Wait for the director's cut on DVD but don't buy it. Rent it at one of the dollar places.
The rundown: Roland Emmerich again destroys the world — this time with cataclysmic quakes and tectonic shifts — as we watch thinly drawn characters survive. 158 minutes. (SPM)
Synopsis: Never before has a date in history been so significant to so many cultures, so many religions, scientists, and governments. A global cataclysm brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.
Damn, I was hoping for a good flick.. But I guess I will come for the popcorn, stay for the images of mass destruction.. Sounds about a superficial as Transformers 2, sans Megan Fox's toe thumb. [ Report Abuse ]