2012 is the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine)
It’s the end of the world and governments around the globe knew about it but didn’t feel like it would be prudent to warn anyone. Instead, they’ve been building gigantic super ships, arks, deep in the mountains of China, shelling out seats for a billion Euros a pop in order to pay for the endeavor.
It's the end of the world in Sony Pictures' 2012
Through happenstance and luck failed sci-fi writer and current limousine driver Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) has discovered the truth, racing against time to rescue his estranged ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet) and their two children Noah (Liam James) and Lilly (Morgan Lily) before the ground literally crumbles to pieces beneath them. Along with Kate’s current live-in boyfriend Gordon (Thomas McCarthy), the group races against both time and nature in an attempt to get to China, hopeful they’ll be able to find salvation if they can just get on board one of those arks.
Had director Roland Emmerich’s (10,000 B.C., Independence Day) humongous end of the world epic 2012 been between 90 and 105 minutes in length I’d be calling it one of the giddiest pieces of psychotically insane B-grade entertainments I’d arguably ever seen. The filmmaker, along with frequent writing partner Harald Kloser, throw in every cliché in the disaster movie handbook, doing it with a sadistically sinister glee that’s kind of endearing. The film is an eye-popping wonder of technology, treacle and trash (not necessarily in that order) potentially making it an exuberantly silly guilty pleasure worthy of the matinee ticket price.
Unfortunately, 2012 isn’t 90 minutes long. It isn’t even 120 minutes long. No, this magnificent mess of a movie is a startling (and butt-numbing) 158 minutes long. It is filled with so many pointless speeches, slow motion emoting and pathetic melodramatic posturing any fun that can be found in all the spectacular bits of destruction is sadly lost amidst a see of emotionally empty boredom. Emmerich and Kloser don’t know when to quit, the last half hour such a wet noodle slog of turgid awfulness any good will I might have had disappeared just about as quickly as California into the gurgling waters of the Pacific.
It’s funny in a way because by and large this film defies all the normal rules of critical judgment. This is a piece of catastrophic fiction that embraces every moment, every standard, every cliché the genre has ever known and runs with them in a way bordering on satire. The filmmakers have come so very close to making, not only the ultimate disaster movie, but one that celebrates and mocks the genre in ways darn near revelatory.
Other than Cusack (who goes above and beyond for a guy just picking up a paycheck) there’s not anything to say about the actors. Everyone is fine, including the always reliable Chiwetel Ejiofor as a driven scientist who sidelines as the movie’s moral compass, but I can’t say anyone has a memorable stand-out moment. Not that they’re supposed to. This film is about carnage and chaos, actors pawns to be maliciously played with and dispatched depending on the director’s maniacal machinations.
Considering how much I have loathed the majority of Emmerich’s films I’m moderately surprised I enjoyed 2012 as much as I did. The movie isn’t so much better than the director’s previous works as it combines all of their faults and excesses transforming them into a richly insane stew of carnage that’s at times hugely enjoyable. He hasn't learned from his mistakes instead he's amplified them to a level never before seen, and while I’m not going to comment as to whether that’s a good thing I will say I spent so much time laughing I didn’t particularly care.
If only the movie hadn’t been so agonizingly long I’d be able to give it an actual recommendation instead of a half-hearted shrug of the shoulders. I never hated 2012, never felt like it was a pain, and I certainly got a kick out of the middle portion’s rampaging sequences of never-ending destruction. But boredom slips in as the movie goes on, and if this really is Emmerich’s depiction of the end of the world I give him props for the staging but demerits for putting me to sleep before the final maelstrom could ultimately do everyone in.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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