Review of 2012 (2009) by Paul D — 11 Nov 2013

2012 is a strictly Roland Emmerich affair. It's all visuals and no substance.

It was surprisingly better than I had expected.

There is a very strong dramatic tone 2012 which reaches for the heartstrings of its viewers and works in its tugging sometimes, while more consistently focused on high voltage thrills.

And Roland Emmerich does know what viewers can hope for with a disaster film, and since it's his last he's sure to make it a magnificent coup de grace of an apocalypse film. I mean it's not a great movie, but he ensures that it has plenty of explosions, grounds collapsing, flooding and tsunamis, car crashes and aviation to make it a large scale story which explores various of the destructive elements of the 2012 apocalypse. He does this through use of incredible visual effects which is clearly where the majority of the $200 million budget went. As a visual experience, 2012 is unforgettable, and the musical score is powerful as well.

And even more surprisingly, the cast of 2012 are very dedicated and make an effort to showcase their talents.

John Cusack made an incredibly charismatic lead. Even though he's in the role of a disaster film lead, he makes it a very strong effort and dedicated all his skills as an actor to making his line delivery strong and his emotional strength powerful. John Cusack proves his ability to work as an action man and a dramatic star in 2012, and I'm surprised he isn't a bigger scale star because he's truly a talented actor. He is great in 2012.

Woody Harrelson was also hilarious in his time on screen and surely a memorable presence, and Danny Glover experienced his best dramatic work in years while Chiwetel Ejiofor was reminiscent of a younger version of him. The enseme cast of 2012 was all great.

Still, 2012 is far from perfect.

The script in 2012 is cheaply thrown together which ensures that within extended time periods there is little plot development, such as the fact that by 30 minutes in about one plot dynamic has happened. And it doesn't increase much from there because the entire first hour proves to be an incredibly slow and very boring waste of time with predictable dynamics piling up on top of disaster themes to the point where any hope of a twist or a turn becomes a pipe dream. Then again, it was essentially a pipe dream to begin with. And even when Roland Emmerich tries it's just a lacklustre effort. And in terms of plotting 2012 is a fairly basic effort, but Roland Emmerich neglects the importance of the Mayan mythology on the 2012 phenomenon and instead focuses on finding fancy ways to kill people, such as in the moving cogs of a gradually lowering bridge. The Mayan concept is loosely touched upon, but it's thrown aside.

And the lead characters are difficult to really like because due to their thoughtless actions, the lives of thousands of humans become endangered, which is strange considering the disaster in 2012 is set on the earth changing and causing grounds to collapse and flood, yet a few ignorant human beings cause a severe risk to the lives of thousands of people. But there's a lot of inappropriate plotting in 2012 in terms of character-based plot dynamics such as the logic behind how Jackson Curtis was able to hand over a watch for a plane in a heartbeat before the apocalypse had truly stricken. This wouldn't bother me but it's just that with 2012 being such a long film it's easy to find flaws in the storytelling, but it's length is more of an issue than that because while it's a powerful experience, there is only so long I can spend believing that a group of people can get continuously lucky in avoiding the apocalypse trying to get them while people around them die off.

So despite being long and cheaply written, 2012 is a powerful and intense visual experience which is all you could hope for from director Roland Emmerich.