Well, I guess if I were to say that 2012 was a huge disappointment that would imply I had some sort of expectation to begin with. But since I expected little, and got precisely that does that mean Roland Emmerich's latest disaster porn was a success? Hardly. It just means that he's gone from being a director with promising material to just another guy making the same film over and over. He could probably make this blindfolded, and to be honest I'm not totally sure he didn't. Atleast the scripting part.
When the science geeks start turning into a bunch of chatty Cathys, you know it's time to worry. The earth's core is heating up or something. The science is lazy and couldn't be less believable if it were written on a dinner napkin, but really, are any of us here to listen to a bunch of eggheads wrangle about tectonic plates? Didn't think so. What matters is that it all leads up to a buttload of natural disasters, signalling the end of the world as we know it. Good thing the governments have been secretly planning for this day by building a bunch of Arks that look like fleets of Titanics. Not quite the message I think they want to send to their passengers...
Roland Emmerich, who has made a living off these types of films, leaps at the chance to destroy the planet with an almost childlike enthusiasm. The dialogue during some of these disasters is painfully strained, such as when a husband tells his wife that "something is pulling them apart" the ground literally pulls apart beneath them. Hardy har har. National landmarks are always the first to go in an Emmerich film, and of course DC bears the brunt. The White House? Well atleast it's not incinerated by a laser beam from on high this time, but it's destruction is far more embarassingly comical, smushed by a surfing aircraft carrier. That's like getting hit by a falling piano in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The special effects are indeed gorgeous, so it's never a boring film to look at, but I think I'm starting to get diminishing returns from watching the same stuff fall apart so often.
It's much more interesting watching how the apocalypse affects the chosen few humans we get to follow around, and what a motley bunch of A-listers doing B-list work this is. John Cusack is the all around good guy ex-husband; Amanda Peet as his ex-wife; Chiwetel Ejiafor slums it as a science geek; and Oliver Platt as his power hungry boss. Woody Harrelson has the only character worth remembering, as a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist broadcasting from the epicenter of the world's destruction. He's the only character who's comedy seems to make any sense, odd as that sounds. Danny Glover takes on the unfortunate role of President of the United States, proving yet again that in Hollywood if you're a black President then either a world shattering meteor is about to hit or nature itself conspires to do the brotha in. What kinda job approval rating you think he's gonna have after this?
Unintentional comedy such as that makes 2012 far more fun than it has any right to be, and so I'm having a hard time truly bashing this thing the way it deserves. Like I said before, if a movie has no potential for greatness and delivers exactly what it's advertising, can it be called a success? 2012 is loud, stupid, scientifically lazy and often poorly acted, but I never got bored of it. It's a damn sight more enjoyable than his last three films. That's gotta count for something, right?
