2012 (2009). 2012 has been on my short To Watch-list of films at the cinema theatre (the next film is James Cameron’s Avatar, to be released next month). It’s not because I was expecting the film to possess an interesting story. Rather, when Hollywood spends several hundreds of million dollars creating visual imagery that shows massive destruction, you just got to watch it on the big screen.
Put in other words: you don’t watch these disaster/end-of-the-world films with high expectations of story-telling and characters. You watch them because it’s fun to watch stuff blow up real good. In this respect, the film doesn’t disappoint too much.
Just to get it out of the way: 2012 is based upon the premise that the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar has an expiration date of 21 December 2012. The film extrapolates on this and that the world as we know will dramatically change because on that date, according to the film, solar flares will cause tectonic plates on the earth’s crust to move several hundred miles. Put in simpler terms, we’ll all die LOL.
What the film or its viral marketing doesn’t mention though is that the Long Count calendar doesn’t say anything about the world ending. The calendar merely starts on a new cycle. So, I don’t for a moment believe that the world is going to end on 21-12-2012. You accept the film for its hokey story premise: but you still watch it because you expect to see stunning visuals that you can’t see elsewhere.
You know, stuff like these:
2012 isn’t director Roland Emmerich’s first or even second attempt in directing massive on-screen destruction of the world’s monuments. Heck; after Independence Day (1996), Godzilla (1998), and The Day After Tomorrow (2004), 2012 is his fourth outing. And boy, is there a lot of destruction going around. Emmerich has stuff in this film that’d make the other Master of Chaos and Destruction a.k.a. Michael Bay green with envy. Where else can you find a film with exploding volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, ships going uplorry, nuclear bomb-esque ashclouds all occurring in the same breadth? 2012 is like the last disaster film you’ll ever desire – with all disasters under one roof!
And here’s just a small sampling: in 2012, The White House gets blasted by an out-of-control aircraft carrier (though honestly I still found the destruction by alien death-ray in Independence Day more cheer worthy LOL), an ocean liner is swept upside down in Poseiden-fashion by rogue waves, the Sistine Chapel comes crashing on the gathering of the faithful, Los Angeles sinks into the ocean, Hawaii gets turned into a burning inferno etc. Reportedly in a news article, Islam’s most holy site – the Kabaa – was spared off inclusion as Emmerich did not want to offend religious sensitivities and have a fatwā issued on his head.
Funnily though, even though I wasn’t even mildly expecting any coherent story or characters you could empathize with in 2012, the cast assembled for the film are proven talents that you can’t help feeling it’s all wasted when they’re saddled within a film where the only story resides in convenient plot derivations to get the film moving from one disaster setting to the next. The cast includes John Cusack whom I always enjoy watching, Danny “I’m too old for this sh*t“ Glover from the four Lethal Weapon movies, and Chiwetel Ejiofor from the Serenity film. The film’s highpoints are only in its scenes of mayhem, and they’re not as many as the slower moments when the supposed story-telling takes place.
And as exciting as the very visual scenes are, the film sadly lacks suspense – and anxiety over the unknown just isn’t quite the same thing as getting that adrenaline rush of watching your favorite tourisy spots swallowed up by the earth. Of the cast of both primary and secondary characters, you’d be able to guess correctly who’s going to live and who’s gonna buy the farm. The latter Redshirts practically have their fates stamped on their foreheads and serve as disposable fodder only to emphasize how seriously sh*tty is this notion of earth dying.
Still, it was still worth the $10 per ticket we paid for the viewing at AMK Hub’s Cathay on Saturday morning. I’m certain the next blockbuster we’re catching, Avatar, will be a far better viewing experience though, especially considering that director James Cameron has that rare talent of combining amazing visuals with great stories.
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