Great special effects + one dimensional characters = passable but typical disaster movie

Rating: 5/10 (11 August 2010)

In order to enjoy a disaster movie, it's important to suspend your disbelief to a large extent. Don't expect this type of movie to be at all logical, nor should you expect its characters to be very well developed. If the plot takes you from 'A' to 'B', with a reasonable amount of fast-paced action, then it probably has done its job.
No, I did not think 2012 was masterpiece; but with its great special effects, it certainly ranks as passable. 2012 deals with a rather unpleasant subject: the end of the world. The ancient Mayan prediction that the world will come to an end in 2012, comes true in this movie. Director Roland Emmerich purposely avoids hammering his audience with true tragedy. We never see any close-ups of mangled bodies or blood being shed. Everything is shot at a distance so that we get the 'bigger picture' of what it would be like when the world is destroyed; that way, the true horror and terror is minimized.
The best scenes in 2012 focus on the journey of part-time novelist and limousine driver, Jackson Curtis, very ably played by John Cusack. His journey begins when he picks up his kids from his ex-wife, who is now living with a new boyfriend, Gordon, a plastic surgeon, and takes them on a vacation excursion to Yellowstone National Park. Curtis runs into the best character in the film, Charlie Frost, in one of Woody Harrelson's best roles in a long time. What's so wonderful about the crazed Frost, is that he's one of these guys who's been trying to warn the world about his apocalyptic world view for years and now everything he's been saying has been vindicated. Frost actually welcomes death and stands impassively as the volcano consumes him. He revels in his last 'moment in the sun'. Curtis, on the other hand, initially believes him to be a crackpot, especially after Frost claims he has a map with the location of a secret ark project, which the world leaders have been working on, anticipating the end of the world.
Finally Curtis sees the light when he sees the news report about the seismic activity that splits a supermarket in half which his ex-wife and her boyfriend were just in. He wisely rents a small plane and then drives to LA where he picks up his ex-wife, the boyfriend and his two children and then drives to the airport as the city collapses around them. Yes, all the near misses are ridiculous, but the special effects will keep you riveted to your seat. After making it to the airport, there's a new surprise: the pilot is dead and Gordon must fly the plane, despite only having a few lessons as a student pilot. They fly to Yellowstone in order to get a hold of Charlie's map and just escape as a volcano explodes. The map points to China and Curtis realizes that they'll never get there in a Cessna.
When they arrive in Las Vegas, a huge crack has already appeared in the airport runway. Curtis runs into his Russian billionaire boss, Yuri, who has paid for tickets on the Ark, and also happens to have a giant Antonov 500 aircraft, which takes them to China. Yuri is another colorful character, who ruthlessly ditches his girlfriend, Tamara, as he only has three tickets for himself and two children on the Ark. But later, he redeems himself by saving his children by throwing them onto the Ark while the gates are closed and then falling to his death as a result.
There's more exciting action when the Ark is unable to power up due to a jammed and malfunctioning boarding gate. At the last minute, as the effects of a tsunami pushes the Ark toward Mt. Everest (which has been displaced to a different location thousands of miles away due to a movement of the earth's crust) , Curtis goes underwater inside the hydraulics chamber (and with the assistance of his son) removes an impact driver which has been preventing the Ark from powering up.
As to be expected, despite all the great action scenes, 2012 falls down in the area of character development. Emmerich serves up a cornucopia of politically correct characters including three blacks who are virtually faultless. They are: Dr. Adrian Helmsely, the American geologist, who proves how righteous he is when he insists that the stranded passengers who couldn't board a damaged Ark be allowed on the one he's boarded (Helmsley notes that his assigned room can fit a lot more people). Pitted against him is the supposedly heartless, white Chief of Staff, Carl Annheuser (Oliver Platt), who argues realistically that allowing the extra passengers might jeopardize the entire project. Even worse is the saintly president, Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover), who decides to remain in Washington, and 'go down with the ship'. In contrast, Emmerich obnoxiously has Queen Elizabeth board the Ark with a couple of her Corgis, implying that she's a coward! Naturally the president's daughter, Laura Wilson, must overcome her grief by striking up a romance with Helmseley, as they head for their new destination in Africa.
There's plenty of other cheesy stuff that relegates 2012 to the realm of the mediocre. There's a particularly distasteful line about how the gene pool will be compromised when two Arab sheiks are seen, en route to board one of the Arks. And what about how expendable Gordon, the ex-wife's boyfriend is. After he's killed, it takes a scant minute or so before the ex-wife is back in the arms of John Cusack (Curtis). Also note that that Tibetan Buddhist monks are noble but Chinese soldiers are heartless. Other disappointing characters and moments are well chronicled here on the internet. But 2012 sometimes gets it right: the last moment of the Indian astrophysicist and his family may go down as one of the most touching moments in cinematic history.