The Special Effects Overshadow the Second-Rate Disaster Saga

Rating: 4/10 (25 November 2009)

Writer & director Roland Emmerich has described "2012" as "a modern retelling of Noah's Ark," and his description is spot-on specific. Emmerich reigns as the duke of cinematic disaster. He launched his epic-scale disaster classic "Independence Day" and followed it up with "Godiza" and then "The Day After Tomorrow." Short of blowing up the universe, Emmerich cannot continue to tp the scope of these films in term of sheer magnitude. Some of the problems with "2012" is that it lacks any villains. Late in the fourth quarter somebody utters a line about the operation not being a conspiracy. Guess Emmerich and co-scribe Harald Kloser forgot about the Louve Museum curator who dies in a fiery car crash in Paris because he was going to spill the beans about the approaching disaster.
Far-fetched heroics and superlative special effects cannot raise this mind-numbing disaster movie above its hopeless generic origins. None of the heroes are unusual, charismatic, or interesting. "Con-Air" star John Cusack does his dad role again while Woody Harrelson plays an off-his-rocker broadcaster. The turgid story turns into a global odyssey from Southern California to China and the paths of a motley collection of protagonists intertwine as they struggle to save their own lives along with their families. Not surprisingly, the special effects overshadow the characters. The California and Las Vegas calamity scenes are tour-de-force, but they are wasted in a mundane melodrama about a desperate dad who rescues his cute ex-wife Kate Curtis(Amanda Peet of "Syriana") and their two young kids Noah & Lilly Curtis(Liam James and Morgan Lily) along step-dad Gordon Silberman (Thomas McCarthy of "Duplicity") from certain death in Southern California. As Jackson Curtis, Cusack drives a limo for Russian billionaire Yuri Karpov (Zlatko Buric of the "Pusher" movies) and has written a science fiction novel entitled "Farewell Atlantis" that, though it sold less than 500 copies, impressed government scientist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor of "American Gangster")enough that he wants to preserve it for posterity. The "GoldenEye" style scene in a Russian cargo jet plunging into an enormous chasm that was once the Las Vegas strip is the second-best scene after the wholesale destruction of Santa Monica. Some of the back projection looks really obvious. Not only is screenplay by writer & director Roland Emmerich and Harald Kloser incredibly pedestrian, but it also takes them some time to build up a head of steam. Ostensibly, they hang their narrative on the Mayan calendar that predicts an earthly cataclysm in the year 2012. "2012" starts three years before the events with some dull exposition. Actually, the ground-breaking special effects don't kick in until about 45 minutes into the action after all this dreary expository build-up. Although this science fiction fantasy lacks the excitement of "Independence Day", "2012" surpasses than "The Day After Tomorrow" because it is an international disaster movie. The breathless pace of the California scenes isn't repeated, and the film sinks into a coma during the second half of its interminable two-and-a-half-hour plus running time with its final scenes in China where everybody is rushing to climb aboard a number of huge arks. These large commodious vessels look pretty cool. Of course, a last-minute complication crops up that prevents the American ark from getting under way and it comes as no surprise that Jackson Curtis will have to save the day. Danny Glover of the "Lethal Weapon" movies is cast as an older Obama-type U.S. President who prefers to stay behind and the closest to a villain that "2012" has is Wilson's chief of staff, Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt of "Don't Say a Word"), who has no problems leaving the poor behind in the wake of destruction.