Rubbish

Rating: 6/10 (24 November 2009)

Tonight I went along to see this, the new Roland Emmerlich disaster epic 2012. It starts well enough in 2009, with shots of planets in our solar system lining up (the scale is all wrong) and a nice close-up of the sun. Then we're inside an Indian neutrino detector, and from here 2012 goes careening off the rails. You see, prompted by the alignment of the planets, the sun starts spewing out solar flares that contain, ummm, "mutated neutrinos". These particles somehow begin to heat up the Earth's core just as water heats up in a microwave oven. Yep, this is how it's explained in the exposition! Cut to three years later and the Earth's crust is going berserk, just like the screenplay. Look, the film is not that bad, really. I mean, it didn't make me want to drink bleach or anything like that. What you've got is one reel (20 mins) of set-up followed by a string of crazy cliffhanger escapes. John Cusack's in it, trying to patch up his broken marriage to Amanda Peet, and who can blame him? So that's interesting. California and Yosemite National Park are both destroyed with amazing photo-realistic SFX (remember, Emmerlich brought us that photo-realistic woolly mammoth stampede in 10,000 BC). Also, the third act has some great visuals but also the worst Touching Hollywood Moments we've seen since, well, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. Additionally, there's too many cringe-worthy speeches by assorted protagonists – not enough of them die horribly. That said, 2012 kept my suburban audience of plumbers, single mums, emos, and Japanese students entertained with its sheer excess; this punter just never wants to see it again.