2012

I was not sure how to attack this review. I feel like it deserves something different than my standard review, but those are typically reserved for movies I hate and that does not seem fair because how does one hate such a masterpiece? Does anyone hate The Godfather? Am I speaking in hyperbole? Do I make any sense? I shall get back to The Godfather connection later. Anyway, I guess what I am saying is, I wish I knew how to review this bad boy in a way that really spoke to how I feel about it. I wanted to think of something grandiose, ridiculous and terrifying. I wanted to write something that made the readers feel the chases, the fireballs and the tsunamis. But, words do not exist for such thing, so I shall just soldier through.

In 2009 a scientist,Adrian Helmsley(Chiwetel Ejiofor) goes to India to meet with another scientist and they have science-y conversations about the world heating up and things called neutrinos or something. All I know is shit is bad. It is so bad, Helmsley hops back on a plane and goes straight to Washington D.C to talk to the chief of staff for the President. He bogarts a tuxedo jacket to get into the black tie event and is quietly ushered from the party and taken to the President. More official science-y stuff is said and the timeline speeds up. We are now in 2010 and the President(Danny Glover) addresses the leaders of the world in a summit. From there we see a bunch of things going on in China and eventually we end up in the year 2012. It jumps off with a mass suicide. Then we meet Jackson Curtis(John Cusack). He is a writer, which means he must be divorced because he was always working on his book (it is a movie rule that writers are divorced, I swear). He wants to take his kids camping in Yellowstone, even though his son calls him by his first name and his daughter wets the bed at 7 years old. The kids do not enjoy themselves, but Curtis meets Mr. Exposition (Woody Harrelson). Mr. Exposition tells Curtis about how the world is going to end, soon. Curtis thinks he is crazy until weird shit starts happening. Curtis leaps into disaster movie action by scooping up his family and tirelessly outrunning natural disasters as they attempt to survive by getting on these ships the Governments of the world set up. Oh and there are Russians we meet because we need to cheer when someone dies?

Disaster flicks are a dime a dozen, but never has one movie featured so much destruction. Roland Emmerich has never shied away from destroying cities with aliens, Godzilla or extreme cold, but 2012 brings the notches up a bit. First, we get this phenomenal sequence with Cusack and his family in a limo dodging buildings, cars and other things in Los Angeles as massive Earthquakes attempt to break California in half and sink it into the Earth. The effects are disgustingly amazing and destruction has never looked that cool. From there, we get to watch Cusack, now in a camper, dodge fire balls erupting from Yellowstone as it has become an active volcano. It is spectacular and thrilling and absolutely ridiculous every step of the way, especially as Cusack has the first fake hero death of the movie. Directly after the fire balls, the family jumps in a plane and dodges more insanity, and later they are in a plane again dodging the city of Las Vegas falling apart.

There is something incredibly trivial about rooting for this family while the rest of the world dies. There is something inhumane about getting joy out of watching a giant Aircraft carrier topple over The White House, but Roland Emmerich is so committed to his cause and so sure of every move that it is impossible to ignore. There is some deeply earnest material in the movie, too. A moving, somewhat cheesy speech is given by Helmsley in the climax about what makes us human and how people are good. It is inspiring for sure and one hopes that in moments of crisis that people exist who are willing to do everything they can to save as many as they can. Cusack's character wrote a book that was panned by critics because he was idealistic that man would be good in times of infinite crisis. Helmsley read the book and he was affected by it. There is some talk about how art and culture were preserved because they speak to who we are as a people. Sure, I am looking a little too deeply into the movie, but the material is there.

Okay, back to The Godfather. Every single mafia movie I see is somehow compared to The Godfather. It is the epitome of the mafia movement in cinema. If you want to make the case for Goodfellas, I will listen, but The Godfather and in a round about way, the Godfather 2, is where the idea of the mafia family resides. 2012 is The Godfather. I will go back and watch The Core, or Armageddon and compare them to this movie. 2012 is a master class in how to wreck shit. It is a technological wonder of flawless execution in blowing things up, sinking things, and watching the world separate. It gives you everything a disaster flick could possibly have. We get, not 1, but 2 phone calls from family members in teary goodbyes. We have these fringe characters we sort of care about and are loosely connected to the leads. We get the evil Government guy, the broken family man trying to show he loves his family. It is all there. The hero even gets two fake deaths!

No one will ever confuse Roland Emmerich to be a director who understands story, complex characters or interesting dialogue, but sometimes, just sometimes, movies are meant to be spectacles. They are meant to fill the whole screen with big bright colors, loud soaring music, giant sweeping crane shots and explosions that shake the seats. There is nothing wrong with just having a good time watching a hack director end the world in the most interesting ways possible. Once in a while it is good to turn off the brain and just enjoy whatever is going on in the absolute most ridiculous set of circumstances ever.

Final Grade: B

P.S. The shout out to Jaws was lost on almost everyone in the theater, but I got a Big Kyle Laugh out of it.