Doomsday, Roland Emmerich Style

Rating: 7/10 (16 November 2009)

The same director responsible for previous mega budget extravaganzas as 10,000 B.C., INDEPRENDENCE DAY, GODZILLA, and the often-maligned DAY AFTER TOMORROW is at it again. This time, Roland Emmerich destroys the world with a specific date in "2012." The whole premise of the film is based around the ancient Mayan calendar, which predicts the date of December 21, 2012 as signaling a profound change in our globe. Of course, this gives rise to all manner of speculation and debate among scientists and theologians alike. But in this film's case, it involves a severe solar storm somehow affecting our planet's geological plates to the ultimate extreme, and the arks that are being built to house as much of what will be left of humanity as possible. Among those caught up in the calamity, and those the audience can feel some empathy for while the world is being swallowed up whole, are a failed sci-fi author (John Cusack) and his family, and the geophysicist (Chiwetei Ejiofor) who saw this Apocalypse coming in 2009. In the meantime, during the 156-minute running time of "2012", save for a typically Hollywood nut job role for Woody Harrelson (as a Manson-inspired conspiracy theorist), we are witness to every disaster possible in reality, and possible only because of the special effects.
As his filmography shows, Emmerich is more in the Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay school of super destruction than the more refined nuances of a Spielberg or a Kubrick, so nobody should go in with any grand illusions that "2012" is another "2001." It certainly doesn't have the poignancy of the earlier 2009 doomsday drama KNOWING. Still, the performances by Cusack, Amanda Peet (as his wife), Ejiofor, Oliver Platt, Danny Glover (as the last U.S. president), Thandie Newton, and, in a minor cameo, George Segal are at least enough to cover the frequent lapses in its credibility.
In every sense of the word, "2012" is as insane a film as has been made in Hollywood in a very long while, and that's saying a lot. It's certainly not a masterpiece in the traditional sense. But in terms of extreme spectacle and CGI genius...well, it might as well be.