2009 / 158 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

According to the Mayan calendar, the world has an expiration date and that date is 12-21-2012, a little over three years from now. So, what can we expect on that foreboding date? Roland Emmerich, the same helpful documentarian who illustrated what we could expect from Global Warming in “The Day After Tomorrow” (apparently waves, snow and tornadoes) and told us how the Pyramids were built in both “10,000 BC” and “Stargate” has answered that question for us in his informative new film, “2012″. Apparently, there will be earthquakes, waves (again) and gigantic volcanoes. I’m not sure exactly what we’re supposed to do in order to prepare for this cluster of mega-cataclysms, but it appears that we should have spent more time and effort finding habitable planets and building spaceships to get to them. Unless we make major advances in space travel in the next three years, it seems we’re pretty well screwed.

After showing us several scientists discovering that the Earth’s core is getting hotter and various ways that our mostly shady world governments are preparing for the ramifications of this discovery, “2012″ shifts focus to average people and how they react to 12-21-12 (AKA “The Day the Shit Hits the Fan”). The main focus of the movie is John Cusack, a largely unsuccessful writer who is now a chauffer for a corpulent Russian billionaire/boxing enthusiast (played by Zlatco Buric, whose performance is a sheer hoot), and his estranged family. When Cusack’s typically-for-a-movie crappy father takes his typically-for-a-movie bored kids to Yellowstone National Park, he makes the acquaintance of an overly hairy conspiracy nut/pickle enthusiast played with zany gusto by Woody Harrelson. When Harrelson first informs Cusack that the world is about to go completely down the tubes, he dismisses it as the ravings of a hairy madman. When he discovers (in the clumsiest possible fashion, might I add) that his Russian client has bought his family “Get Out of Apocalypse Free” cards, however, Cusack scrambles to grab his own estranged family and find a way to avoid the eminent shitstorm that is about to rain down on all of humanity. Pretty soon they’re all bonding and making new friends while dodging earthquakes, giant waves and lava bombs. Meanwhile, earnest geologist Chiwetel Ejiofor is making eyes at the president’s hot daughter (Thandie Newton) while serving as the American government’s moral compass.

Considering that this movie is directed by Roland Emmerich, you’ve probably already figured out that it serves up paper-thin characters, bigger-than-big special effects, and unintentionally hilarious dialogue (at one point Woody instructs Cusack to “download his blog” and the president’s daughter responds to a date request by saying that her “diary is full”, whatever the hell that means). However, these aren’t necessarily bad things. If not for its laughable dialogue and quirky characters, this movie would be as dull and self-important as “Deep Impact”, another “the world is screwed” disasterpiece featuring a black president and big-ass waves. That movie sucked (and hard) because it was striving too hard to be earnest and serious. It was a hermetically sealed film with no sense of fun and too many boring so-called “noble” characters. “2012″, on the other hand, is cheesy and insane. Its running time tips the scales at over two and a half hours but it’s never, ever boring. Emmerich throws in just enough set-up and paranoia to establish the film’s tone (the movie plays it straight and yet serves up one ridiculous set piece after another, much like the movie “Airplane”) and doles out the cataclysmic destruction in satisfying installments. Sure, if one stopped to think about it, the fact that we are meant to “ooh” and “ahh” at the deaths of billions of human beings seems pretty grim. Thankfully, “2012″ is insane enough that such grim facts never enter one’s mind. Yet despite its gloriously cheesy dialogue (pretty much everything out of the Russian billionaire’s mouth is a laugh riot) the movie does manage to sprinkle some genuinely effective moments of quiet contemplation and pathos into the mix. I credit this mainly to Chiwetel Ejiofor, an actor so damned good he even manages to bring gravitas to THIS movie. I also liked the fact that Emmerich cast quirky thespians such as John Cusack and Woody Harrelson rather than generic prettyboys like Jake Gyllenhaal and Channing Tatum. Their presence definitely makes things more interesting, and it’s essential to us having any kind of emotional investment in these loony proceedings. They bring personality to these roles that the director and screenwriters never bothered to add, mostly because they were too busy figuring out how to make Yellowstone explode or California fall into the ocean (a sight I’ve been waiting decades for a movie to provide). By the way, the visual effects (which are the real stars of a movie like this) are pretty damn impressive. Despite the movie’s various absurdities, I spent a good deal of its length on the edge of my seat.

“2012″ is by no means a great film (it’s more like a disaster movie Greatest Hits compilation, really), but it’s so damned much fun that it actually makes it hard to take the looming Mayan apocalypse threat seriously. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing but since there isn’t much we could do about the end of the world anyway, watching all those grim History Channel shows and worrying about the end of days isn’t going to help you any more than buying a ticket to “2012″ and enjoying the ride. You may as go out with a smile on your face.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 11:51 am and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.