2012 (2009)


Scott is my oldest friend, 16 years of sharing common bonds, extraordinary circumstances, and childhood traumas. It's the kind of love they call "bromance: now- I hate that term by the way. It's the kind of love it takes to get talked into seeing some thing as mindbogglingly craptacularly shitty  as the new disater-porno from Roland Emerich (Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 B.C.)  2012- in the theater no less. 
The plot is loosely based on 2012 being the end of the Mayan Calendar and the assumption that American (and global audiences really) don't have a thought in their pretty little heads. It's an unending (nearly three-fucking hours) series of disaster movie clichés and heroic speeches about hope, humanity, America and family values (I counted no fewer than fifteen before i said screw it and went to the bathroom-really a "small" is large enough stop up-selling me 44.oz "mediums"!)
After such spectacular Sci-Fi films like the rebooted fantasy of Star Trek, the gritty realism and horror of District 9 or the reverently faithful apocalypse of Watchmen you'd think something like 2012 could be cheesy good fun...and it surprisingly is in places. Roughly forty-five minutes too long in the beginning of the film it finally starts rolling with improbable car rides through Los Angels besieged by the Big One-on to an airport whilst we manage to fly away always about fifteen feet ahead of the pyrotechnic cloud of the volcano that used to be Yellowstone National Park. Then we get tsunamis, raining ash, fire and brimstone, sun microwaves, yet more speeches, rekindled and newly ignited loves, and a gaspingly high number of solid to amazing character actors popping up in this mess. Here's a brief sampling of those who should be deeply embarrassed and who have been in way better films : John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor (whom I LOVE) , Thandi Newton, Jimi Mistry(whom I have a HUGE crush on),  Johann Urb, Amanda Peet, Danny Glover, Oliver Platt.....oh you know pretty much EVERYONE...oh and Woody Harrelson waves a pickle in John Cusacks face.

It's actually so laughably bad it's kinda good. The ultimate spectacle disater-porn film. It's all disaster films combined in some weird Voltron configuration to make the mightiest , mindless entertainment possible.







1 comment:

Megan Cline said...

Based on the trailer and your description, it sounds like Roland Emmerich did what Peter Jackson did in 2005 with King Kong. Spent three hours to tell a story that should've been told in two just to add special effects. I love John Cusack but I'm not interested in seeing this one. Maybe DVD but I'm not going to rush out to see it. And I agree. Smalls are plenty for me. Especially when I'm paying $5 for a soda.