2012, A Disaster Movie – Film Review

Roland Emmerich’s End of the World Thriller Stars John Cusack

Nov 12, 2009

Despite its showy special effects capturing scenes of mass destruction, Emmerich's doomsday movie makes the end of the world seem utterly predictable and anti-climactic.

With 2012, Roland Emmerich, who directed Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, brings audiences another over-the-top disaster movie. Starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet and Chiwetel Ejiofor, 2012’s biggest star is the special effects dominating the film. Unfortunately, neither the special effects nor the characters are compelling enough to justify 2012’s over 2 ½ hour running time.

In this doomsday movie, powerful sun storms heat up the Earth’s core, causing massive earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. It’s a global disaster of Biblical proportions – or more accurately, of Mayan proportions. The movie title refers to the cyclical end of the Mayan Calendar, which some believe predicts the end of the world.

That the world’s end has been foretold allows Emmerich and co-screenwriter Harald Kloser to skim over sticky science questions. Presumably the apocalypse’s inevitability builds tension about the survival of characters and of humanity. What it also does, what it primarily does, is concentrate on the spectacle of mass destruction. Although essential to the genre, 2012’s relentless disaster scenes come at the expense of developing its characters, narrative, and themes.

Emmerich's Movie Combines Mayan Calendar, Natural Disasters and Global Government Conspiracy

In 2009, Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor) travels to India, where one of his colleagues has discovered the sun storms’ effects. Helmsley tells U.S. Chief of Staff Anheuser (Oliver Platt), who informs President Wilson (Danny Glover). Wilson, in turn, privately informs select world leaders. They implement a secret plan to save some of humanity – the powerful, the rich, the intellectuals – while keeping average citizens in the dark.

The plan begins to fall apart in 2012,coincidentally matching the Mayan calendar timetable and the same time California starts experiencing severe earthquakes. Writer Jackson Curtis (Cusack) learns of the conspiracy during a Yellowstone camping trip with his two kids. There he meets whacky radio operator Charlie (Woody Harrelson), who tells him about the conspiracy and secret evacuation plans.

When Los Angeles collapses, Curtis remembers Charlie’s stories and rushes to save his kids, ex-wife Kate (Peet), and her partner Gordon (Tom McCarthy). As the world goes to pieces, they out-maneuver collapsing freeways and buildings, volcanic eruptions, and imploding mountains. They join others, including Curtis’s Russian employer Yuri and a Tibetan family, as they rush to the evacuation site in China.

As is common for the genre, 2012 uses underdeveloped characters, even the central characters of Curtis and his family. Curtis, a semi-estranged father, redeems himself through selfless acts and is reconciled with them. Gordon doesn’t stand in Curtis’ way, as he’s the kind of disposable character who exists to spur Curtis on to becoming a better person.

Protecting the family and the helpless are two of the film’s heavy-handed ideas. Scenes hammering home theses concerns are given to President Wilson, who plays a predictably noble father to the U.S. as well as to first daughter Laura; Yuri and his sons; and Helmsley and his father (Blu Mankuma).

John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor Play It Straight, Woody Harrelson and Oliver Platt Chew Scenery

Cusack is better than his role, playing Curtis with pleasant sincerity, though he doesn’t quite hit his comic lines. The movie’s humor seems to be an afterthought, and Cusack’s difficulties reflect the script’s awkwardness. Ejiofor nicely plays Helmsley’s idealism and almost manages to sell an impassioned speech about saving both individual’s lives and the humanity of the survivors.

Harrelson and Platt thankfully seem to be in an entirely different film than the rest of the cast. They embrace the scene-stealing potential of the scenario and avoid treating their cardboard roles too seriously. McCarthy, Newton, and character actor George Segal are underused in favor of focusing on the Curtis family and, of course, more screen time for the disasters.

As in previous films, Emmerich concentrates on piling one disaster on top of another, scene after scene after scene. Audiences see the destruction of multiple cultural icons, including the White House, Eiffel Tower (albeit the Las Vegas replica), and Brazil’s Christ the Redeemer statue.

However, just because a movie can create fantastical mass destruction doesn’t mean it should – not because these scenes are inappropriate but because their overuse can undermine the film’s impact. 2012’s havoc is beautifully rendered and technically showy, with a certain shock value. But the barrage of destruction, without being grounded in reality or with characters to care about, is overkill – even in a movie about global disaster.

With its inventive destruction, shaky science, and focus on action more than characters, 2012 fulfills audience's most basic expectations for a full-blown disaster movie. Unfortunately, Emmerich's interest in visual spectacle over narrative substance undermine the film's half-hearted attempts to engage with some of the question it raises about family, faith, sacrifice, and humanity.

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