2012 (Columbia Pictures)
Praise the Special Effects, Discount the Script
Audiences tend to live cataclysmic events in movies. We all held our breaths in The Poseidon Adventure, scanned the skies in Independence Day and shivered uncontrollably in The Day After Tomorrow. Now we can all shake, rattle and roll as the world erupts in 2012.
2012 is a film with great special effects but a plot that just cant be taken seriously and I am not talking about the end of the world forecast. I am talking about how Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) manages to escape every peril thrown at him. He manages to evade and avoid giant fireballs plunging into the earth around him, great crevices opening up as he drives his car through them, and ash clouds that should suffocate him. The man has more lives than any hundred cats.
Finally after all that he still has to get his family to China where there are supposedly arks waiting to take on a small amount of the population if you have the big bucks for a ticket. These arks also contain the treasures of the world and a few singular animals no two by twos here (so much for mating).
Traveling with Jackson is his ex-wife Kate (Amanda Peet). She is good for a few save the children! yells. The two kids are there to scream, Faster, Dad, faster. Plus there is the ex-wifes boyfriend Gordon (Tom McCarthy) who just happens to know how to fly a plane.
Interspersed in all this action are cameos by such luminaries as Danny Glover as the President of the USA; Thandie Newton as his daughter; George Segal as a passenger on the Poseidon or at least thats what the boat looks like as it rolls over when the big wave hits; Woody Harrelson as a loony radio announcer; and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the Presidents go to science man. Not one of these actors makes much of an impression, and neither do the leads.
This is not the kind of movie you go to see for the acting, or for the plot; it is for the big booms and the falling buildings. Thanks to the magic of computers you get the full impact of the world going crazy just like those pesky Mayans said it would.
The film is rated PG-13 for profanity and violence.
To get all this end of the world action packed into the film it has to have a running time of about three hours. It goes on and on and on from one suspense thrilled event to another. You get one place fixed and then another tragedy is at hand.
Stuff some food in your pockets and head out for this flick if you must. Leave the smaller kids at home because it is intense in parts. For the rest of you older guys it is a popcorn thriller. It is nothing to take too seriously and I hope Cossack got a nice paycheck for his embarrassment.
I scored 2012 a Mayday! 5 out of 10.
