2012 is supposed to be The End Of The World as the Mayans knew it, but yet again, it’s The End Of The World as Roland Emmerich knows it. The writer/director of Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow is back in pretty familiar apocalyptic territory: the working class everyman just trying to get his family to safety, the wizened old man who wants to reconnect with his family in the final moments, the President of the United States who delivers inspiring messages when we need it, and the destruction of national and world monuments that make the perfect images for the trailer.
But Emmerich has perhaps forgotten what made Independence Day a big hit. The explosion of the White House got us into the theater, but it was Will Smith and Bill Pullman fighting the aliens that kept the film in our memories. Independence Day was about the human spirit enduring against impossible odds. 2012 implies that the only way we’re going to get through the end of the world is by pure dumb luck.
Indiana Jones fans will know about the moment that separated the fourth movie from the classics: it’s been nicknamed the “nuke the fridge” moment. Without giving away too much, Indy escapes certain death thanks to a refrigerator, and the audience who’s been with Indy through snakes, rolling boulders and temples of doom finally rolls its eyes and says “oh, come on.”
2012 is a two and a half hour “nuke the fridge” moment. John Cusack’s character is either the greatest driver who ever lived or the luckiest SOB on the planet. He manages to stay literally a few inches ahead of the destruction. The world doesn’t crumble around him; it crumbles behind him as he gets his family to safety. And thankfully, he hooks up with a pilot who’s just as good with a plane. And he has chance encounters with just the right people who have just the right connections to keep himself, his estranged wife and his kids safe.
And for some reason, they’re the only people we’re supposed to care about. The world is ending behind them, but the music swirls as if we’re witnessing a heroic moment – never mind the hundreds of thousands of people dying in each scene. There are people who literally abandoned friends and family to save themselves who, for some reason, look at the plucky Cusack and his family and imply: “Oh, why don’t you tag along with us, strangesr?” There are a couple of instances where just before people die, the audience is supposed to laugh at their indignities. We see the crack of one guy’s ass and we get a cheap joke about how slow old drivers are – just before they’re obliterated.
The destruction itself? Awesome. There’s no denying the impressive spectacle of the world coming to an end – be it the Vegas skyline crumbling, California falling into the sea or an ocean liner being lifted by a tidal wave on top of the White House (An impressive tidal wave indeed – Emmerich managed to move an ocean next to Washington, DC). If you do want to see 2012 because of the effects – see them on the big screen.
How did all this destruction happen you ask? It has to do with the sun heating the earth’s inner core causing a tectonic disaster. We would have known this was coming if we’d only paid attention to the Mayans and their calendar. How do I know that, you ask? I paid attention to the maybe thirty seconds where that prediction is addressed. How the Earth ends and the predictions about it is what would have made an interesting movie. Instead, we get this bombastic and very predictable movie. Honestly, I didn’t have to be a Mayan to know what would happen, who would live and who would die.
Let’s hope the Mayans’ prediction that something terrible would happen in 2012 has been mistranslated into “something terrible will happen that’s called 2012.”
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