Movie Review: 2012

Snuck out to see the movie 2012 on Friday the 13th.  Hey, it seemed appropriate at the time.

Highly publicized for months if not a year or so, 2012 is Roland Emmerich’s latest “the world’s going to end, we are all going to die unless you happen to be rich and/or popular” flick.

The Plot

The plot of the movie is not really a great deal of a surprise.  We pick up on screen in 2009 with a seismic event in India.  It’s explained that massive solar flares have caused an exponential rise in the neutrinos passing through the planet.  In their words, “think of it like cooking the Earth in a microwave”.  Through a well sequenced set of scenes, we flash forward to see the world making preparations for the inevitable end.

We also follow along with a moderately unsuccessful author, Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) trying to keep his family together despite his separation from wife (Amanda Peet).  Bingo, Bango, Bongo, within a few more scenes, we find ourselves on what seemed like a whirlwind two hours+ of Wylie Coyote chase scenes with the main characters playing the Roadrunner.

Casting and acting

I should probably learn to wait 24 hours before posting my thoughts on a movie that I see in the theater, but I don’t seem to share the concerns of other reviewers.  It’s my unofficial and initial opinion however that the movie was well cast (and heavily laden with Hollywood stars) who each did an admirable job of playing various characters who were literally scared bleepless and running for their lives.

Of special note in my book is Woody Harrelson’s portrayal of the hippy dippy conspiracy nut “Charlie Frost”.

Visual Effects

In a word, stunning.  In two words, absolutely overwhelming.  We all know going in that the biggest part of this movie is going to be the Visual Effects, and I won’t hesitate to tell you that some of them look a little cheesy.  I keep hearing that “in 5 years we won’t even need actors” but that’s simply not going to happen any time soon.

On the other hand, unlike movies such as “The Day After Tomorrow” (Also — coincidentally — a Roland Emmerich production) the computer generated scenes (with few exceptions) were actually believable.

I noted the use of a blue screen (or are they using green now?) in three scenes.  In the interest of preserving the movie and not spoiling it, I won’t share them here, but unless you’re going to see the movie just to pedantically kvetch about such details, those few scenes don’t prove to be that much of a distraction.

(on a personal note, I was more distracted by the rude moron in front of me as well as her boyfriend who wouldn’t shut up during the whole movie than I was by anything on the screen)

My hastily-written yet sleep-deprived opinion

As I may have mentioned before, at $9.00 to $15.00 these days for a movie ticket, I find it difficult to suggest that ANYONE pay to go see a film unless it’s a matinee.  This is perhaps an exception to the rule. Despite the often-talked about reservations about the holes in the plot and the intentional omission of certain scenes  and “end of the world” mojo, this was a fun film to experience on the big screen.

Is it the best movie ever?  Not even close.  There are more holes in the plot and the physics behind some scenes than you could ever hope to fill, so just throw the silly bucket in the water and enjoy the swim.  After all, 2012 is a Roland Emmerich “end of the world” movie.  Please tell me you aren’t going to see it for it’s meaningful subtext.  You’ll go to see it because you wanna see crap “get blowed up” and at that, Emmerich is a master.

Besides, it’ll make a fantastic Blu-Ray on the 60″ Sony next Christmas.

The Good

• It’s a great action movie once it gets rolling
• The acting and scenery are great
• While taking on a huge, weighty subject, it’s not 1/100th as preachy as Emmerich’s earlier efforts to teach us all how much we suck as human beings.  I speak, of course, of what I commonly refer to as “The Greenpeace meets PETA” movie, “The Day After Tomorrow”.  Instead of “the world’s going to end, but we stupid humans could fix it”, 2012 comes across very much like a judgment day flick where we’re all fubar regardless of whether or not we choose to recycle.

The Bad

• At 2 hours and 38 minutes, it’s a bit long but nowhere near as painful as sitting through the “3000 hours” that the last Lord of the Rings movie seemed to have lasted.
• There seemed to be an intentional decision to show the utter destruction of the core of all the major religions, EXCEPT the politically incorrect ideas of destroying anything Islamic or something central to world politics such as the Wailing Wall.  In interviews, Emmerich is quoted as saying in essence that they avoided such targets on screen out of “fear of a fatwa“.  With respect, this seems exceptionally chicken {bleep}.  Either it’s the end of the world, or it isn’t.

The Trailer