Zillion dollar globe smash

Rating: Null/10 (3 December 2010)

"There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul." –Victor Hugo
Roland Emmerich directs "2012", a loose remake of "When Worlds Collide" and his own disaster flicks, "The Day After Tomorrow", "10,000 BC", "Godzilla" and "Independence Day" (whole chunks of this film are stolen from "Independence Day").
The film is interesting for at least seven reasons. Firstly, it's strange to see a quirky actor like John Cusack in a fairly straight-faced action hero role. Secondly, despite the copious amounts of CGI on display, this is old school carnage, Emmerich having no time for the shaky cams and pseudo documentary stances of Spielberg's "War Of The Worlds", Bay's "Transformer" movies or fare like "Cloverfield" and "The Mist". Call it by-the-books "end of the world classicism" and you'd be right, but also a dick.
The third interesting thing is the film's subtle spiritual and political vein. Emmerich adopts a strange anti-Christian, anti-Catholicism, anti-Western, pro-Eastern, pro-Buddhist, pro-African/"cradle-of-life" tone, and jettisons his usual fondness for America's military and political prowess in favour for a world in which Western figureheads are all religious fanatics and selfish idiots and the Chinese are the new global superpower, fairly righteous, technologically advanced and with an economy robust enough to save the planet. Of course we shouldn't be surprised by this. Bad artists shift with the winds of change, great artists are so far ahead you don't see them making waves.
The fourth interesting thing about the film is its sheer hypocrisy. This is a film which urges us to cherish human life but which treats life supremely cold-heartedly, Emmerich knocking off characters and killing millions, not only for our amusement, but without any emotional weight or visible moral concern. The way a Russian woman is killed in the final act, and then swiftly forgotten, is the kind of thing a better director would turn into satire, or use to make a critical point, but for Emmerich she's just another special effect to be used and discarded.
The fifth interesting thing is the way the film continues Emmerich's fondness for naming films after dates. "Independence Day", "2012, "The Day After Tomorrow"...the guy's filmography is a calendar on steroids.
The sixth interesting thing about the film is the way "2012" relentlessly taps into the noir universe. This is disaster movie meets Philip Marlowe (the hero is a writer – pay attention to the books in the film), the film's predestined cataclysm mercilessly bearing down on mankind. Nature's the ultimate femme fatale, always hungry and always in heat.
The seventh interesting thing is the sheer banality of the film's CGI. Modern lust's for spectacle can no longer be satisfied. It is not only that spectacle is dead - and soon the concept of the "spectator" itself - but that audiences are increasingly aware that spectacle can provide nothing. There's a blankness, a flatness, an emptiness, to today's spectacle. It is dead, soulless. But this soulnessness is not a new thing, but a shift in awareness, a realisation that today's spectacular fabric of 1s and 0s can quench nothing, nor can the solid state sfx of the past. Like an old man clinging to his youth by pathetically indulging in flashy sports cars, the exponentially bigger and glossier explosions of these films, everything from "Avatar" to "2012", cover up something truly pitiable. Emmerich destroys the world and no one bats an eyelid. Why should they? Able to plug into simulational, interactive console carnage, New Man's too wired to be fazed. But interactive communities don't bridge the gap, they slice it up and multiply it. There it is..now its gonethen it's back. Triangle. Square. Circle. Enter. Space. No Esc.
7.5/10 – If we don't compare it to Spielberg's "War of the Worlds", in which calculated calamity is served with superiority, "2012" offers fairly good popcorn entertainment. Still, Emmerich's films tend to age badly. Will Smith helps "Independence Day" hold up today, but even that film's SFX now look strangely quaint.
Worth two viewings. Once for pleasure, once for pain.