I would never accuse disaster master Roland Emmerich of possessing nuance, or even style, for that matter, but he who gave us Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow sure knows how to put on a show. I mean, in 2012, his latest end-of-the-world extravaganza, he destroys the White House with nothing less than an aircraft carrier. Take that, Irwin Allen.
What passes for a script here follows an ensemble of poorly written characters as they spout cringe-inducing dialogue and deal in melodramatic fashion with an actual apocalypse brought on, from what I could gather, by an overactive sun affecting the Earth’s crust. Apparently the Mayans just knew this would happen.
The sheer scale of CGI destruction in this thing puts even Transformers to shame, though we’re forced to endure 40 minutes of minor tremors and worried-looking scientists to get to the really good stuff. That would be when limo driver John Cusack and family race to an airport as the ground heaves up around them, big rigs flip over and Cusack is forced to drive through a collapsing skyscraper.
Then, as the group manages to escape in their little plane, freeways tumble into giant holes, a train flies off its tracks overhead and nearly hits them and, in the film’s best scene, the plastic surgeon piloting the plane narrowly navigates between two buildings that are falling toward each other. Emmerich even shows us the people in those buildings as they plummet to their deaths.
That’s not all, folks. You also get to see volcanic ash clouds, a tidal wave wash over the Himalayas, Yellowstone heave and rumble and erupt into a giant fireball, the Vatican dome roll over praying people, Hawaii turned into a glowing mass of lava flows and watch as yet another tidal wave (there are quite a few) goes all Poseidon Adventure on a cruise ship carrying George Segal.
It’s purely empty spectacle, of course, as Emmerich, much like George Lucas, cares more about what computers can create than creating even halfway believable characters or dialogue. So we get a decently talented cast–including Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton and Amanda Peet–either yelling a lot or, in the cases of Danny Glover and Chiwetel Ejiofor, giving insufferably noble speeches.
As well there are some elements that, even for this movie, border on the absurd. Cusack’s consistently sharp driving, for instance, or the laughable sight of him outrunning said ash cloud. Or how the yippy little dog of one character scampers across a cable to the safety of one of the (admittedly awesome-looking) arks built to ensure a measure of mankind survives.
Having said all that, I did sort of like the budding romance between do-gooders Ejiofor and Newton and enjoyed Woody Harrelson’s cameo as a crackpot. And I laughed when the rich Russian, stuck in one of his luxury cars with some of the other characters, yells at everyone to shut up so he can calmly tell the voice-activated vehicle to start. The scene of animals being airlifted is nicely surreal, too.
It’s the perfect kind of film to see in a theater, I suppose, but the mind-numbing 2 ½ hour running time will both test your patience and make the utter lack of substance all the more glaring once the CGI ceases to amaze. And there are times, especially during the protracted finale involving said arks, when it feels like the thing will actually drag on until 2012. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]
Action/Adventure/Drama/Sci-Fi/Thriller
Rated PG-13
DVD Release Date: 3/2/10