Directed by: Roland Emmerich
Premise: Due to celestial event, the surface of the
earth loses its integrity, threatening the continued existence of human
civilization. The major governments of the world work together to preserve the
human race while individuals evade disasters.
What Works: As an exercise in grandiose special
effects, 2012 has few equals. The film has a number of major set pieces
and director Roland Emmerich indulges his affinity for spectacular destruction
on a level not seen before.
What Doesn’t: Although 2012 has great
special effects, that is about all the film has going for it. Although the
scenes of destruction are massive and well done, a lot of them recall images
from other disaster pictures like The
Day After Tomorrow, The
Poseidon Adventure, and 2005’s War
of the Worlds. Once the disaster begins, the film settles into a
predictable pattern, repeatedly putting its characters in a place on the cusp of
a calamity and having them make a narrow escape by plane or by car. The film
essentially repeats the same scene with the same characters over and over again
for two and a half hours, only changing the scenery, which of course is
destroyed. For a film like 2012 to be anything beyond a glorified theme
park ride, it needs to make an investment in its characters but the film never
does that. 2012 is full of talented actors like John Cusack, Danny
Glover, Woody Harrelson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Thandie Newton, but there is
nothing for them to do. The characters spend the entire film running away and
they never act with volition to save themselves or each other; they just manage
to get lucky in their escape. For this kind of apocalyptic survival film, it is
necessary for the story to define what is at stake, and to allow the characters
to come through the disaster with some new sense of self and community; to put
it another way, there needs to be a revelation after the apocalypse. 2012 is not at all interested in any kind of story, and just piles on more and more
destruction. The emptiness of it all becomes more problematic for the picture as
it makes oblique references to recent natural and manmade disasters like
September 11th and Hurricane Katrina but without any thematic or
narrative payoff; the result is a very crass film that exploits real life
tragedy for no other reason than cheep thrills.
Bottom Line: While 2012 may be the biggest and most extravagant apocalypse picture ever made, it is also extraordinarily hollow. Like much of Emmerich’s work, this is B-movie making on an A-movie budget but this time the director has eschewed any pretension of story or tact.