Our ongoing series looking at movies that took the blockbuster genre into the realms of excess. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.
By John J. Joex
Rating: 1 ½ out of 5 Stars
Roland Emmerich has made a career out of destroying Earth or just delivering rampaging mayhem with such movies as Independence Day, Godzilla, Armageddon, and The Day After Tomorrow. So apparently when he read about the Mayan prediction that the world would end in 2012, he decided that was the next gig for him in his ever-expanding slate of sfx blockbusters. The plot for this one actually has some interesting sci fi elements in it, unfortunately he made little effort to try and develop them. Scientists discover that a solar flare is causing the Earth’s core to overheat and that this will lead to devastating consequences. This of course is kept concealed from the public as massive arks are built in secret to hold a select few members of Earth’s population who will hopefully emerge from after the disasters and rebuild the planet. Conspiracy theorist and pirate radio broadcaster Charlie Frost (another great performance by Woody Harrelson) stumbles upon some of this information and starts to broadcast it as things begin to heat up around the planet (pun unintended but accepted). Writer Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) happens to be in Yellowstone Park with his family where Frost is broadcasting from and learns that the dissident announcer has valuable information about the ark project. When Jackson and his family return home, massive earthquakes begin to tear up the city and they manage to narrowly escape before Los Angeles falls into the ocean (giving it the Biblical ending we always expected). They seek out Frost to get the maps to the ark project then begin a perilous journey with hopes to join up with those who plan on riding out this final storm in these vessels of salvation.
There was the germ of a really interesting story somewhere in the script that eventually emerged as 2012 on the big screen. The devastation of the planet has plenty of epic story-telling potential and the idea that a select few were chosen in secret to survive the race carries many dramatic and moral dilemmas with it. But then this is a Roland Emmerich film, so we didn’t get any of that. Instead we got spectacular depictions of mayhem brought to us with grand CGI expostulations along with daring last micro-second escapes and plenty of yuks thrown in to keep our brains from slipping out of idle. No grand statements on the human condition and who has the right to survive the apocalypse here. Instead, the director just cranks out yet another formulaic, mind-numbing spectacle which barely even delivers adequate popcorn viewing.
And as Emmerich has done on several other occasions, he mixes comedy with action to give us what he believes is the full blockbuster package. But just like with several other of his films (Godzilla particularly comes to mind) the two don’t blend well together in 2012. At times this movie seems like an all out comedy and even throws in elements of the absurd with the perennial unlikely escapes from certain death that Jackson and his family maneuver through. And it really seems like a questionable choice to turn the end of the world into a laughing matter, or at least the way he went about it (for a much more challenging apocalyptic comedy, watch the absurdist The Bed-Sitting Room). Sure, he has done some of that before, most notably in Independence Day, but that time around he more successfully balanced the humor with the drama and action scenes. With 2012, much like with Godzilla, the humor works against the other elements and delivers a rather schizophrenic viewing experience.
And ultimately this one even fails on the guilty pleasure scale. Independence Day delivered a big, dumb movie that basically robbed its plot from War of the Worlds without giving H.G. Wells so much as a nod, but that film is still watchable and provides an enjoyable yarn even if you realize the full time it has little or no nutritional value. You can just shut your brain off and enjoy the visuals and the one-liners and route for our survivors to kick some alien butt. 2012 on the other hand crosses the line and actually starts to offend our sensibilities. There’s only so many unlikelihoods and improbabilities you can accept while not flying on the Heart of Gold, and this film takes those far beyond tolerable levels. And that’s a shame because it could have really turned into a decent and potentially thought-provoking film with some of the moral quandaries it suggested. Just not in the hands of Emmerich.
Still, the movie made close to $800 million worldwide at the Box Office, so there’s definitely an audience for mind-numbing films like this. And because of that, Emmerich were certainly deliver more in this vein in the years to come. Those looking for intelligent, thoughtful, well-crafted filmmaking need not mark the calendar for the next entry from this particular director.
Here’s some other suggestions for End of the World Movies that we recommend:
