"'2012' makes me want the world to end in 2010. It's that bad." – Movie Review.

Tweet By Sean Patrick Kernan

2012 hysteria has gotten so out of hand that NASA was compelled to put out a press release stating that the Mayan Calendar does not predict the end of the world. Indeed, the planets will align in 2012 but they will as they have numerous times before without massive worldwide destruction.



Could there be a better endorsement for the goofball disaster flick “2012?” This latest project from world destruction expert Roland Emmerich goes off the rails of reality from jump street but knows it, accepts it and even has a little fun being all earnest and serious about stuff blowin' up real good.

John Cusack leads an ensemble cast in “2012” as Jackson Curtis. A failed writer, Jackson drives a limousine for a living and that is how he arrives to take his two kids camping for the weekend. Jackson is estranged from his wife Kate (Amanda Peet) who has remarried to a plastic surgeon, Gordon (Thomas McCarthy).

Jackson is taking the kids camping at a rather odd moment. All over California giant cracks are forming. There are a number of mini-earthquakes and other ominous signs of doom that Jackson and family choose to ignore. Meanwhile, across the country, a government geologist, Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), has discovered that the end of the world is near.

The sun is firing off flares that become neutrinos that are heating the earth's core and blah, blah, blah, let's just say science is merely a touchstone for “2012” and leave it at that. The necessary info is that the world will soon end. What luck that there is a solution in place. Giant ships called Arcs will whisk the wealthy, privileged and connected of the world to safety on the high seas while the average folks die horribly.

Thanks to a whacked out, Art Bell wannabe, well played by Woody Harrelson doing a fabulous Dennis Hopper impression, Jackson finds out about the Arcs and aims to get his kids, ex-wife and even his romantic rival to Asia where the Arcs are being loaded up.

Basic set up, establish the stakes, establish our everyman hero and then rain down the CGI destruction. You have to give this to Roland Emmerich, the idea is efficient. If only the actual film were so cut to the quick. “2012,” despite many guilty pleasures, lingers for nearly three hours blowing up monuments and killing dignitaries.

If you enjoy carnage and human sacrifice then you may marvel at watching priests crushed by the Sistine Chapel. The Pope gets crushed by the Vatican and the President of the United States? He gets an aircraft carrier named for John F. Kennedy dropped on him.

Roland Emmerich really enjoys these scenes too much. Really, it's rather unseemly, the pleasure that Emmerich seems to take in staging these CGI deaths. It's comparable to the joys that a director like Eli Roth takes in torturing his average Jane characters, minus the misogyny but with a healthy dose of blasphemy.

It is that unseemly quality, along with the film's exorbitant length, that makes me resist liking “2012.” And I really kind of want to. The CGI destruction is well crafted and even kind of exciting, especially watching a commuter plane fly between falling buildings. John Cusack and Chiwetel Ejiofor are shockingly effective in building human surrogates from the rubble of expository dialogue and the running and screaming that are the main components of their characters. Amanda Peet, Danny Glover and Thandie Newton round out a main cast right at home in a disaster movie ensemble.

I kind of want to recommend “2012” because there is some real good camp and some terrific CGI. Unfortunately, the film overstays its welcome and becomes a little to blood lusty for my taste. The seemingly random fates of well known heads of state, and a few filler characters, leave a bad taste that I just cannot shake.

“2012” is a movie for the forgiving fan of big, dumb loud, world ending blockbusters only.

BYLINE:

Sean Patrick Kernan is a film critic. Check him out at: http://www.myspace.com/number1ramjamfan. Email Sean at sean@zoiksonline.com.

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