Posted 2:04 am Friday, November 20, 2009
'2012' Director Emmerich Revels In Apocalyptic Absurdity
By STEWART SMITH
Entertainment Writer
The bums are right.
Entertainment Writer
The bums are right.
That's right, all those scraggly, homeless, (allegedly) crazy guys standing on the street corner crying out about the end of the world - according to director Roland Emmerich - are right. The end is nigh and it arrives courtesy of some truly absurd pseudo-science.
You see, apparently a planetary alignment that only happens once every 430,000 years is causing the sun to shoot neutrinos at Earth, thusly causing our planet's core to rise to impossible temperatures, subsequently superheating the crust, resulting in massive earthquakes and tsunamis. At first I was rolling my eyes at the absurdity of this, but then I reminded myself I was watching a Roland Emmerich film and not a documentary and just kind of rolled with it. After all, this is the same man who has made films where invading aliens are defeated because they hadn't updated their Norton Anti-Virus software and also shown that it is possible to outrun cold weather.
Having that kind of perspective is vital when sitting down for a movie like this. I'm not expecting an introspective think piece about the human condition. What I am expecting is a fun flick with likable characters navigating their way through some absurd scenes of wanton destruction on a global scale. In other words, I'm not looking for a good movie, I'm looking for an entertaining movie and until around the last fourth of the film, "2012" delivers just that.
I also hope Michael Bay watched "2012" and took a few notes, because if you're going to make a two hour and 40 minute film about ultimate destruction, this is how you do it. Earlier this year I utterly and completely trashed Bay's "Transformers" sequel (which has a near identical runtime) because despite some exciting moments of action and destruction, the remainder of the film was populated by characters I could have cared less about (and in most cases wanted to see them get blown up along with the rest of the scenery), and also because Bay has no sense of pacing and so his nearly-three hour film felt almost twice that long.
An airplane flies through the wreckage of downtown Los Angeles as a gigantic earthquake destroys the city in a scene from the film "2012."
Emmerich's film, on the other hand, at least tries to make you care about these characters and the film really only starts to feel the weight of its length until near the end. This is largely due to a halfway decent script (hilarious pseudo-science aside) and also the fact that Emmerich has the sense to populate his movies with genuinely good actors. The human drama that fills most of the film won't stir you as much as Emmerich and his co-writer Harald Kloser would like, but John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt and Amanda Peet do their best with what they've got. Cusack remains as affable and likable as ever and I'm continually puzzled as to why Ejiofor isn't a bigger star. He's got to spout the most scientific psychobabble out of anyone else and he almost makes it sound like what he's saying is actually plausible.
The script at first feels like it will be groan-inducingly bad with some remarkably on-the-nose lines, but then once a character says, "There's something tearing us apart" and then a gigantic rift quite literally separates the characters you realize it's all on purpose. Also, John Cusack's character, Jackson Curtis, clearly missed his calling by attempting to be an author. Curtis needs his own spinoff movie, "JACKSON CURTIS: LIMO STUNT DRIVER" something fierce because his skills as a wheelman as he drives limos, RVs and Bentleys would make even the Dukes of Hazzard green with envy.
At this point, I'm sure you're thinking, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Characters. Fine. But how's the destruction?" And that's kind of how I felt during the film. It's at least 30 to 40 minutes into it that we really start seeing the world - literally - fall apart. The good news, though, is that it is worth the wait. I dare say that even Michael Bay doesn't take this much delight in so thoroughly obliterating scenery.
The CGI effects in this might be the best I've seen all year. If Los Angeles or Yellowstone National Park or Washington, D.C. were ever to be ripped asunder by natural forces, I imagine this is exactly what it would look like. But what makes the proceedings so entertaining is with how much glee Emmerich inflicts this destruction. I imagine the DVD commentary track will be nothing but him cackling for two hours and forty minutes. People don't just die in this movie, they get taken out in the most over-the-top way possible. It's one thing to watch people get swallowed up by an earthquake, it's another to see them squished by flaming mountain derbis and it is Emmerich's pacing of the apocalyptic absurdity that really keeps the movie afloat. Every time you feel like the drama is starting to get stale he goes and drops an aircraft carrier on the White House or some equally outlandish act.
That ultimately leads to the biggest problem I have with "2012." Around one-fourth of the way through the movie there is quite literally nothing left on Earth to blow up and all we're left with is the survivors trying to tread their way through what quickly turns into the prequel to "Waterworld" that no one asked for.
Still, if you've ever wanted to watch John Cusack outrun giant ash clouds on foot, Hawaii returned to its natural state of volcanic magma patches or Danny Glover be the last president of the United States then "2012" is just the movie for you.
Grade: BOOM
Stewart Smith is the Entertainment Writer for the Tyler Morning Telegraph . Contact him at 903-596-6301 or by e-mail at ssmith@tylerpa per.com.
Stewart Smith is the Entertainment Writer for the Tyler Morning Telegraph . Contact him at 903-596-6301 or by e-mail at ssmith@tylerpa per.com.
