2012 Review

Score: 3/5

Review by The Claw

We’ve all heard about the supposed dire predictions that will happen in 2012.  Theoretically, the Mayan calendar (among other ancient calendars) predicts that the world will end on December 21, 2012.  Such a phenomenon is so powerful that it has sparked fears of suicide when the day arrives (or before).

                Well, fear not movie viewers, because this film is (believe it or not) an escapist entertainment film.   I say escapist because there is much implausibility in this movie, including the “scientific” explanation on how the world, in this movie, is going to end. 

                The movie begins with Dr. Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofora), a U.S. geologist who convinces the President (Danny Glover) that the Earth will suffer from major worldwide earthquakes and tsunamis because the Earth’s core has dramatically increased in temperature.  As a result a “select few” of the human race, under the orders of Carl Anheuser (Oliver Pratt), one of the President’s advisors, will be evacuated.   This, of course, raises ethical questions on who gets to decide who survives.  Its clichéd, but somewhat effective. 

                        The main billing of the story is John Cusack, who plays a divorced limo driver/author Jackson Curtis, who takes his kids (with permission) from his ex-wife, Kate (Amanda Peet).  While driving to the Yosemite National Forest, he hears a doomsday commentary from AM radio host, Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), on how the world is going to end.  After Kate and her new boyfriend Gordon (Thomas McCarthy) suffer from an unusual, but powerful earthquake in Los Angeles, and Jackson hears about the end of the world from his boss’s arrogant twin sons in the exact same fashion from Charlie, Jackson and everyone else returns to find Charlie on how to survive.  They survive in the most implausible fashion possible (yet I smiled at the absurdity of it).

                        The movie has tremendous special effects and computer animation, some of them frightfully real.  There are also many emotionally charged moments such as the President saying goodbye to his daughter (Thandie Newton), an aging lounge entertainer attempting to reconcile with his estranged son, Helmsley saying goodbye to his recovering alcoholic father, the escape scenes that I mentioned, and so forth. 

                        Going through it all, this movie is not meant to be taken seriously.  After all, Director Roland Emmerich also directed Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, Godzilla (1998), and Universal Soldier, so if you expect some serious commentary from this film, you’re going to be disappointed.  Even Mayan historians have thoroughly rejected the theory that 2012 is going to happen.  So sit back, relax, and enjoy it while you can, because when December 22, 2012 hits and everything turns out to be alright, this movie will be dismissed as a fad.  Too bad this movie was released sooner and not later.