Bonkers

Rating: 8/10 (15 January 2011)

Overblown, over-dramatic, ridiculous, and absolutely ludicrous – this is probably the best way to describe Roland Emmerich's latest offering. It is a sentiment that even NASA agrees with, as 2012 was named as the most absurd science fiction film of all time. Comedian Dara O'Briain has taken the opportunity to poke fun at the lunacy of the plot and science behind it. North Korea even banned the film for ridiculing such an important year for the country. Yet if you just accept the madness, then 2012 is a tremendously fun and entertaining film.
The 'plot' stems from some scientific idiocy which isn't worth explaining, and leads to the planet pretty much blowing itself up, with multiple volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis devastating the world. What follows is the typical mass panic, and everyday people stepping to the fore. John Cusack stars as Jackson Curtis, a novelist turned limo driver who races against the planet exploding all around him in order to save his family and get them to safety in China. At the same time, the governments pontificate about what to do and try to look heroic and selfless while doing it. Yet Cusack is not outdone by his costars, including Danny Glover as the heroic President, Chiwetel Ejiofor as the scientist trying to warn the government, Amanda Peet as the hero's ex-wife, and the ever-watchable Oliver Platt as the slime-ball chief of staff trying toseize the opportunity. All the characters you would expect. Nothing complicated about it.
But for Roland Emmerich, it is not the plot that he likes to complicate, but the special effects. For it is this that really makes 2012 such a viewable and entertaining film. Emmerich has always liked his set-piece detonations of landmarks (White House and Statue of Liberty in Independence Day, the Hollywood sign in Day After Tomorrow) but he really raises the bar this time, with some quite mind-blowing special effects scenes that make his previous efforts look like small-budget indies! Volcanoes erupting and causing entire continents to shift and fall into the sea is ambitious, even for Emmerich, but the scenes are exhilarating and spectacular; genuine 'wow' moments that are what the cinema was made for in the first place. Obviously at the same time you will be screaming 'as if!' at the screen, or rolling your eyes like marbles as various forces of nature propel vehicles, people and landmasses across the screen, but that all adds to the fun. It is simply wonderfully stupid!
However, while the dialogue is corny and clunky, the characters are stereotypical and one-dimensional, with little interesting about them, and the plot, for all the wonderful explosions, is predictable and by the numbers, it is surprisingly edge-of-the-seat. Much fun could be made about the frequent 'just in the nick of time' nature of escapes, and lava moving at a very convenient (and strangely variable) pace, but then realism isn't exactly the film's strong suit! If you enjoy typical average disaster films then 2012 is certainly worth seeing, as it is a disaster film that is above average, particularly visually. The film has no pretensions about what it is, so audiences should certainly not be disappointed. The lack of depth to the characters make it difficult to fully engage and invest emotionally in the film, but in terms of visual thrills, 2012 is brilliant, adrenaline-pumping fun.