I didn’t catch 2012 in theaters, but I heard what everyone was saying and I knew it wasn’t nice.  However, I held out hope because I really wanted to defend the movie and say that we should appreciate it for being fun.  I typically like these kind of movies and despite the negativity, I was still excited about it.  But it wasn’t meant to be and I quickly learned that the negativity I had heard wasn’t even close to being harsh enough.  This movie isn’t even close to being enjoyable.

It took about 20 minutes before I understood anything that was said in the film.  It’s not because they were speaking “too technical” or that the script was over my head, it’s because the dialogue was nonsensical and completely random.  It sounded like a little kid wearing a doctor’s coat and pretending to be smart.  That’s when I knew that the people who wrote the script had absolutely no comprehension of science beyond a fifth grade level.  And this is coming from a guy that thought they did a good job in ARMAGEDDON of making it seem believable, so I’m not quick to insult the intelligence of a screenwriter.  But anything involving the science of 2012 was ridiculous.

By now, you’ve probably heard that the world is going to end on December 21^st of 2012.  This particular date is “famous” because to the ancient Mayans, this was their day for Armageddon (the end of the world, not a screening of the Michael Bay film).  In the film, we start in 2009 when two scientists discover the increased temperatures of the earth’s core and that leads them to deduce that the world will end in 2012.  We pick up again in 2012 as the prediction has started to come true.  Aside from a few government types, we also follow the events through the eyes of Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), a struggling author and divorcee that’s taking his kids to Yellowstone.  For some reason, Yellowstone is the center of where all of this destruction is taking place and Jackson and his kids get a firsthand look at what’s about to come.

As of this point, we haven’t seen anything interesting.  This is a big-budget, high concept, end of the world film and it took almost 30 minutes to get to the first action sequence.  The first action sequence is Jackson and his family racing through LA in a limousine while the city is destroyed around them.  You’ve probably heard that this scene is great and the effects are amazing.  I hate to break this to you, but this is one of the worst CGI scenes we’ve seen in the past five years.  The destruction of the city is great, but any scene involving the car and especially scenes that cut to the actors in the car are embarrassingly bad.  Remember those old SNL skits where people would be in a car and extras would hold cardboard cut outs behind them to make it look like the car was moving?  That’s exactly what this looked like.  But the path of the car and the scale of the car to rest of the world was completely off.  At times it either looked gigantic or miniature; and that’s just a lazy effort from the special effects team.

But it’s an end-of-the-world film and so they have to have some sort of human element to keep people emotionally involved.  Love him or hate him, Michael Bay understands this and usually manages to excel in that arena.  He should give Roland Emmerich some lessons because Emmerich seems to have no understanding of how to get audiences emotionally involved in characters.  Even with the likeable John Cusack, I couldn’t have cared less about the fate of Jackson Curtis and during his blatant POSEIDON rip-off at the end, I was just waiting for the film to end.

I didn’t want to be another critic that took shots at 2012, but this was a horrible film.  So to sum up, this film had bad acting, atrocious dialogue, b-grade special effects and screenwriters that couldn’t be bothered with research.  Audiences don’t need much to be entertained, but I don’t even think these guys were trying.

BLU-RAY REVIEW

I have admit that as I started watching these special features, I kept waiting for someone to burst out laughing.  Something just didn’t seem right as everyone was talking about “what an important movie they were making” or how this is “the best film we’ve made”.  Were they joking?  Was this just a gag to make fun of the audience?  I guess not because they kept their serious tone throughout.

Video: There’s no denying that this 2.40:1 widescreen transfer was wonderful.  Although the CGI needed some work, it at least looked beautiful.

Audio: As good as the video was, it couldn’t compare to the 5.1 DTS-HD audio track.  This track is booming throughout and made the movie somewhat tolerable.  This had some scenes that would work great to show off your system.

Commentary with Roland Emmerich and Harald Kloser: Like I just mentioned, these guys take this film way too seriously.  I felt like I was in a lecture where the guest speaker didn’t want to be there.  As they move along in a very monotonous manner, they keep mentioning how important the film is and just dive into various aspects of the movie.  I found it to be dry and a little forced.

Picture-in-picture: Roland’s vision: This is an alternate track you can play and serves as a picture-in-picture commentary where they cut to different interviews with the cast and crew and show some behind the scenes footage on the special effects.  I thought it was a cool track and definitely a worthy extra for those that dug the film.

Alternate ending (3:58): This ending was a little odd and I guess this was the first theatrical ending.  Neither were worth writing home about, but this ending is the lesser of the two.

If I had to guess, I’d say THE TOWERING INFERNO was the first big budget disaster flick to draw a crowd. The director of 2012, Roland Emmerich, was only 18 when that film came out, and I imagine him in the antiquated theaters of 1974 with eyes wide open, watching the building ablaze with the body count rising I can imagine the hamster in his head working that wheel with a fury, thinking of all the things he could do in the realm of disasters as a future filmmaker. He has gone on to direct aliens blowing up the world in INDEPENDENCE DAY, GODZILLA stomping on New York City in his 1998 remake, and drowning and freezing the planet in THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. And every time another film comes out, like this weekend’s 2012, much talk is made of his propensity for disaster. But we still line up to see it, as the aforementioned films have grossed $817, $379, and $544 million dollars worldwide respectively. And it’s because the man knows destruction.

First off, let me say I know nothing of the Mayan calendar. I understand much of the “debate,” if that word can be used, around the proposed ending of the world occurring in 3 years is a disagreement as to the interpretation of the Mayans prediction of the end of the world. But I thought we all came to the movies to escape rational thought? And since when do we even give the Mayans any credibility as to Doomsday predictions? But then again, the movie itself mentions the Mayans a few times, too, so maybe the debate is warranted, but again do we really care about the science behind it? When ARMAGEDDON hurled a meteor at us, we just accepted it. And Chiwetel Ejiofor, as the lead scientist in 2012, does well to explain the basics of what’s happening, so that wasn’t a problem.

As for the basics of the story, solar outbursts deliver neutrinos (yeah, I haven’t heard of them either) to the earth which heat up the earth’s core, causing…oh, you know what, let’s just admit it. We watch these movies for the drama of the protagonists stuck in the disaster, and the action and visuals of the world falling apart. And the reason this film gets the rating it does is because in these respects, 2012 succeeds. John Cusack plays Jackson Curtis, failed novelist and current limo driver, estranged from his ex-wife Amanda Peet, who takes his kids to Yellowstone National Park and inadvertently stumbles on advanced notice of the impending doom. This doom was foreseen in 2009 by scientist Adrien Helmsley (Ejiofor), and a secret plan put in place between the President of the United States (Danny Glover, who is not too old for that s**t), which Cusack learns from Doomsday prophet/crackpot Charlie Frost (played with the right amount of mania by Woody Harrelson). The rest of the film involves a series of close calls in which Cusack grabs his kids and runs from Manhattan Beach, runs from Yellowstone (which becomes a super-volcano, another phrase I’ve never heard), Las Vegas and all other cities along a doomed path to China where arks are being built, complete with animals, for heads of state and billionaires who can afford the ticket.

The dramatic scenes follow a formula, somewhat. But they follow the formula well, and they genuinely affect the audience. We all know Cusack will survive the close calls throughout the film, but we still feel the tension. We know there will be monologues about sacrifice and continuing humanity, but Ejiofor and Oliver Platt (as Chief of Staff) do them with passion and brio. And the scenes of destruction are done better than any film before it, with great attention to even the smallest details. So if you don’t like disaster films, obviously this film is not for you. But if you do, this film is done exceptionally well, and shouldn’t be discounted just for the director’s continuing pattern, or disputes on the Mayan calendar.