Are you a 2012er? I was not a 2012er before I watched this movie and afterward I was still not a member of the movement. This film is a real cliffhanger (watch the movie and then laugh at the joke). Déjà Vous is the feeling one is doing or seeing something they have witnessed or experienced before. 2012 reminds me of a cobbled together version of every global action picture produced and spliced together on the cutting room floor by the film geek network. Before proceeding we must ask ourselves ‘is John Cusack the best choice for the lead role in a hundred million dollar action film about the ending of planet Earth?’ And then we must answer the question honestly: no.
Many critics labeled 2012 a humorous blunder. Not so fast critic monkeys. The movie has its merits. Rather than going the typical space ship route to escape a planet wide cataclysm, arks are constructed out of the most resilient elements available. There is one ship for every major country, each capable of housing 100,000 people. Those chosen for survival are billionaires and politicians.
The film is more of a tragic love story than anything else. John Cusack and Amanda Peet are divorced with children. She is remarried to a self-righteous plastic surgeon. Cusack is a limousine driver for a former Russian prize fighter turned billionaire. The children are caught in the middle of their parents’ melodrama. Woody Harrelson plays an obnoxiously stoned moron who broadcasts end of world hysteria to what seems like an audience of five people in their trailers. Sorry about the diatribe, but Harrelson admits to cheating on his fiancé regularly and to being stoned nearly 24 hours a day. Watching his movies is like having chronic diarrhea, it is always there and one desperately wants it to vanish. Somehow (mind you this is a stretch even for Hollywood) Pete, Cusack, their children and her new husband manage to escape the largest earthquake in history with roads cracking to the Earth’s fiery core. They fly away managing to escape certain death by a split second. Only then do they land their plane on a fireball of a crowded airfield and somehow fly another available plane to China within a mile of the arks. This movie is clever in many ways and is well written. It is not cheesy or lame; it is simply based on a foolhardy premise that scares the superstitious and the paranoid.
The denouement reminds teary eyed audiences that obstacles remain to surviving planet wide destruction. For instance mountains and debris can cause cracks in the armor of the lifeboats. Another tragedy can occur by human error. John Cusack and his rag tag group of survivors nearly cause the annihilation of every "American" customer onboard the United States’ ark. They accidentally leave a nail gun in the way of the back door closing gears causing water to gush forward faster than the non-Titanic safety compartments could blockade the ship from harm. Admittedly, fourteen thousand foot high seas after a massive polarity shift and the tectonic reshuffling of the bedrock floor which causes Mt. Everest to look insignificant, is indeed a previously unseen image in a motion picture. Nonetheless, when the American ship crashes into Mt. Everest’s peak and survives I am left to ponder how the crack in the glass window of the ship withstood the mountain’s rage and the sea level’s new pressure. While audiences feel that so many phenomena are expatiated on I feel the exact opposite. Nothing in 2012 is scientifically grounded or explainable.
2012ers believe the world will end on December 21 of 2012 after the Mayan calendar runs out. I have a better idea: print new calendars and do not be afraid to update them. The Mayans are mostly dead, they are not a modern people and they have not stood the test of time. Why would anybody believe a prophecy embellished by scam artists created hundreds of years ago by a civilization which died off from foreign conquest because of a failure to modernize? What is so appealing about death? Why would anyone care about a prediction of 6.5 billion deaths? Why flirt with such nonsense? What is it about human sentimentality that makes extinction romantic? How about spending time on figuring out how to live well and survive?
The best part of 2012 is the performance of Chiwetol Ejiofor. He is an underappreciated actor that puts 199% into every scene. He is a good looking young performer with unlimited potential. Ejiofor plays a U.S. government scientist that is one of the discoverers of the disaster awaiting the planet. He convinces the president of the United States and the heads of state of other nations to begin preparing for the inevitable early as solar flares cause underground global warming of epic proportions. Ejiofor dazzles audiences with a smooth performance as he draws viewers into the plotline without forcing the issue. He needs to be the leading man in more movies.
2012 is more than you would expect, but I have the feeling none of these cliché films will ever live up to the hype. It is worth the money of admission, but leaves one with more of a feeling of emptiness than fulfillment. Still, I cannot resist the temptation to implore you to watch the picture in the theater. Enjoy folks!
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