Film of the week: 2012 (12A)

Damon Smith • Published 22 Nov 2009 14:00 0 Comments

CANCEL the London Summer Olympic Games!

Our time on the third rock from the sun will come to a dramatic end on December 21, 2012, when planets align as decreed by the Mayan calendar.

Thus no-one is going to care a jot about whether our stadia are finished on time, or which member of the cycling team breaks an individual pursuit world record.

Let's call the whole thing off, stop pouring countless billions into the event and instead channel all of that money into endless parties.

If the end of days is truly upon us, we may as well go out with a bang.

And that's certainly what director Roland Emmerich does in his gloriously overblown and knowingly trashy disaster epic.

Having previously destroyed all the major cities during an alien invasion (Independence Day) and plunged the globe back into the Ice Age (The Day After Tomorrow), the German-born film-maker goes one better in 2012 by attempting to wipe out the entire human race.

Every nickel and dime of the reported $260m (£155m) budget is up there on the screen as he wreaks carnage on a jaw-dropping, logic-defying, grand scale.

It's unabashedly silly, yet exhilarating, as Emmerich unleashes follows one dazzling special-effects sequence after another, upping the ante as he gleefully references all of the disaster movie cliches.

Limousine driver Jackson Curtis (Cusack) is one of the heroes of the hour, joining estranged wife Kate (Peet), her new boyfriend Gordon (McCarthy) and the children Noah (James) and Lilly (Lily) as they flee the US West Coast.

The survivors head for Yellowstone Park in search of a conspiracy theorist (Harrelson), who claims to know about a secret government plot to save mankind from disaster.

Meanwhile, President Thomas Wilson (Glover) pushes ahead with a covert plan to build giant arks in China that will save those with the biggest wallets from catastrophe.

His daughter Laura (Newton), slippery Chief Of Staff Carl Anheuser (Platt) and scientific advisor Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor) join the thrill ride.

2012 is two hours and 37 minutes of pure, adrenaline-fuelled entertainment.

There's nothing sophisticated or remotely plausible about Emmerich's apocalyptic vision: for the first special effects-laden sequence, Jackson manages to outrun a giant earthquake in his limo and even drives through a skyscraper as it collapses around the vehicle.

Co-screenwriter Harald Kloser introduces a dog in distress, a greedy Russian billionaire who shot-puts his son to safety, and a glimpse of our Queen arriving at one of the arks, clutching two corgis. God bless you, Ma'am.

Cusack and his co-stars constantly seem to be a smirk away from showing how much they are enjoying this big-budget extravaganza, striking a final note of wistful self-reflection with a rallying cry from Ejiofor's man with a conscience that leaves you feeling all warm and fuzzy.

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This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 19 Nov 09

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