“2012”
2 out of 5 stars
Stars: John Cusack, Chjwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton
Director: Roland Emmerich
Rated PG-13 for intense disaster sequences and some language.
Running time: 158 minutes
Surf’s up, Tibet! The submerging by tsunami of the Himalayas, the highest mountain range in the world, is the big climax of the apocalyptic preposterousness also known as “2012.”
You only wish the world would end to permanently terminate the suffering after spending more than 2 1/2 hours watching cities crumble and John Cusack’s fake earnestness.
It’s hard to decide which of these two recurring motifs becomes more annoying in this ridiculously long, and even more ridiculously over-the-top, disaster thriller.
The premise? The Mayan calendar predicts curtains for humanity on Dec. 12, 2012. Solar flare particles produce a melting of the Earth’s core that may fulfill that prophesy. Unless an international governmental conspiracy can save a group of elites before all hell — and the Earth’s crust — breaks loose, WE’RE ALL DOOMED!
Besides the cliche character scenarios and groan-worthy one-liners from a terribly written script, “2012” is so flippant in the way it mocks the deaths of billions as a roller coaster ride. Additionally, the special effects capabilities depicting destruction have become more sophisticated; dystopian CGI images look less cheesy now. For whatever reason — in this post-9/11, post-depression world of rogue nuclear armament, rampant disease/starvation, scarce oil supplies, and pending global environmental disaster — movies like this just don’t seem as fun as they used to seem.
It’s as if director/co-writer Roland Emmerich is trying to parody himself. The filmmaker behind the entertaining “Independence Day” and then dour “The Day After Tomorrow” has become decreasingly capable at turning planet obliteration into diverting formula.
As in most pictures like this, we are only supposed to care about a handful of characters. We aren’t supposed to care as much that Washington, D.C., is first suffocated by volcanic ash and then hit with a ginormous tidal wave that smashes the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy upside down onto the White House for a demolition double-whammy.
Rather, what really matters is whether failed novelist Jackson Curtis (Cusack), his crazed ex-wife (Amanda Peet) and their little kids survive. Secondarily, we should root for the only two black characters of childbearing age in the movie, a crucial scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and the U.S. president’s comely daughter (Thandie Newton) — that they should only survive but, more importantly, hook up.
Oliver Platt, Danny Glover and Woody Harrelson also star in a blockbuster marked by flashy action set pieces and laughable moralizing in which the grungy star of “Must Love Dogs” must rescue the future of civilization. Yikes.
