2012
From FilmFile
Taglines:
- We Were Warned.
- Who will be left behind?
- The end is just the beginning.
- First, the Mayan calendar predicted it...Now, science has confirmed it...but we never imagined it could really happen.
- Mankind's earliest civilization warned us this day would come...
- Find out the truth. Search: 2012
- How will you survive? Search: 2012
Contents |
Synopsis
An epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.
Review
Small time scientist who discovers something that none of the world's experts notices? Check! Scientist gets taken straight to the President as soon as he tells someone his discovery? Check! Father with a failed marriage and career trying to do right by his kids, and whose son doesn't call him 'Dad'? Check. A global peril which destroys lots of famous landmarks in spectacular fashion? Check! A US President who cares for the people more than himself? Check! Someone says, "We're running out of runway!" at some stage of the film? Check!
This can only mean one thing....A Roland Emmerich film!
2012 is pretty much the standard level of entertainment that Emmerich seems to deliver each time. We should be grateful that he is a director, as if he wasn't he'd be a real life Bond villain, living in an underground lair and blowing up famous landmarks for real! In 2012, much like he did with Day After Tomorrow, he blends pseudo-science with special effects to deliver a disaster movie that ticks all the cliche boxes, but looks good whilst doing it. This time, the focus is on the prediction of the end of the world in 2012 (according to one of the Mayan calendars at least), and extra activity from the sun has caused the earth's crust to become unstable, resulting in earthquakes, devastation, and the like. Survivors fight to survive, and real a secret rescue plan that the world's governments has in place.
This isn't a bad film, but at 2 hours and 40 minutes it is a long one, which at times outstays its welcome. WWhen a film repeats a runway takeoff thrill scene, with the ground breaking apart underneath the plane, not once, but twice, you kind of worry about how lazy the writers actually are! Sure, it looks good, but the same basic scene three times? Is that really necessary? Then there are the obligatory continuity errors, but they can be overlooked if you just accept it as popcorn fuelled nonsense. What is kind of jarring, however, is the really misplaced humour in the film. An early scene of disaster, with Cusack and family racing in a limo through an LA landscape that is literally falling apart around them seems so callous at points. We have the japery of the occupant of the car, and the crazy attempts to outrun the destruction, whilst the exteral scenes could be classed as really harrowing, with people toppling to doom from collapsing buildings, cars being crushed, an elderly pair slamming to their deaths into an uprooted crust. The scene lacks the powerful impact it could have had because fo the flippant way it is handled, and the way the threat is placed upon the vehicle over and over to somewhat ridiculous extent.
This occurrs again and again at various moments of the film, and to be honest seems a bit over-the-top in nature. This is the Armageddon to the Deep Impact, and for those who just want sanitised Hollywood disaster movie, with an attempt at a heart, then it will be pleasing enough. For those who want something a bit meatier, and hard hitting, I suggest waiting for the DVD, and then skipping past any moments with Cusack and crew in it, letting the rest of the film soak you up.
Overall, nice effects, and some phoned in performances collide to create yet another generic disaster flick that will be forgotten by the time the year in question comes around.
Trivia
- The title refers to the end-date of the current (13th) b'ak'tun of the Long Count calendar, used by the Mayan Meso-American civilization. In their creation myth, we live in the fourth "attempt" at creating the world, while the third attempt was dismissed as a failure after its own 13th b'ak'tun. Though Mayan documents contain no such information, popular culture and certain religions predict an apocalyptic event at this date. It is popularly misunderstood that the calendar "ends" on this date, however the Long Count calendar can express dates from approximately 3000BC (their date for the creation of the current world) to approximately 40 octillion years in the future. It is almost impossible to express this date in a mortally comprehensible fashion.
- The doomsday theory has sprung from a Western idea, not a Mayan. Mayans insist that the world will not end in 2012. The Mayans had a talent for astronomy, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon. The next time that will happen is on December 21, 2012; which happens to be the same day the Mayan calender expires. In addition to the Mayan calendar, the modern doomsday myth is bolstered several ostensibly scientific reasons for a disaster. Examples include a pole shift, the "return" of Planet X or the Sun's sinister counterpart Nemesis, a galactic, planetary, or other celestial alignment, global warming, global cooling, a massive solar flare, a new ice age, and so on. None of these have any basis in respected science. For example, the "galactic alignment" between the sun, Earth, and galactic center happens every December. The best alignment was reached in the 1990s and was accompanied by its own set of doomsday theories. Alignments since then have been increasingly poor.
- In an interview by USA Today, Roland Emmerich has stated that this will be his final disaster film: "I said to myself that I'll do one more disaster movie, but it has to end all disaster movies. So I packed everything in."
- At 158 minutes, "2012" is Roland Emmerich's second-longest film, behind The Patriot (2000) starring Mel Gibson. Coincidentally, Gibson directed the Mayan-themed movie Apocalypto (2006) which was also cinematographed by Dean Semler, the cinematographer for this film.
- Roland Emmerich told MTV the cover-up name for this film was "Farewell Atlantis", which is the title of lead character Jackson Curtis' book.
- Wisconsin is mentioned three times in the film. Executive Producer Michael Wimer (Roland Emmerich's friend and business partner) is from Neenah, Wisconsin.
- The eighth film released in select D-BOX enabled cinemas, located in the US and Canada. In D-BOX's words, the motion control technology "adds to the movie's plot and underlying themes of fear, terror and explosive action by offering realistic sensations during most of the film's action scenes."
Cameos and allusions to other films
- When Worlds Collide (1951) - The plotline about building arks to escape the apocalypse, and the ending, where the survivors step out on the deck and see the sun coming up.
- The Poseidon Adventure (1972) - Cruise ship capsizes after being struck by monster wave
- Jaws (1975) - Curtis says "You are going to need a bigger plane" when attempting to leave Las Vegas Airport. Direct reference to Jaws when Brody says "You are going to need a bigger boat" upon seeing the size of the shark.
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