2012 Review

The year 2012 won't just have the next Presidential election, if certain people are right. In fact, some like to believe that 2012 will have the last Presidential election ever, and the final days of mankind. In just three years and one month from now, 2012 will bring about the apocalypse, as the Mayans foretold - right before they failed to see their own extinction.

But assuming 2012 isn't the last year of existence, there are only three years left to take advantage of the story. And if there is an apocalyptic doomsday theory, Roland Emmerich will be there to make a big, bloated, destructive, hilariously insane movie about it.

Emmerich's version of 2012 credits the sun and a planetary alignment for the end of days. However, scientist Adrian Helmsley is able to warn the government about it in 2009, giving the world's elite three years to prepare. When the big year finally arrives, the signs come faster than expected, as natural disasters begin to strike the world. Luckily, divorced author Jackson Curtis is able to hear about it from a paranoid but accurate radio host, and rushes his ex-wife, her current husband and their children out of California in time. But with the rest of the world going down, their only hope for survival is on a series of arks built by the government - which only seems interested in saving itself.

If the 2012 theory hadn't been created by the Mayans, then Roland Emmerich would have just made it up himself. Our modern-day Irwin Allen has already gotten aliens, Godzilla, the British, global warming and prehistoric creatures to destroy everything they touch. For 2012, Emmerich just lets the earth destroy itself, and most of humanity. But much like the government barely cares about the billions dead, Emmerich ignores them as well, to focus on how Jackson's family and a few others survive one impossible close call after another. And they are close calls that are both visually stunning, and drop-dead hilarious.

2012 is the ultimate Emmerich disaster movie, and the ultimate disaster movie, period. Every single laughable element of the genre is included, in one big check list - only multiplied by 100.Various disaster movies have large-scale destruction, laughable dialogue, impossible connections between characters, a broken family, government conspiracies, and big speeches that lecture us about lost humanity. 2012 has every single one of these cliches, and a few more for good measure.

Put them all together, and Emmerich has made a full blown deconstruction of the disaster movie. Whether he meant to or not, Emmerich's ultimate disaster movie plays more like a comical parody of the genre. His movies are mocked to high heavens anyway, so it feels like Emmerich is just beating satirists to the punch. South Park mocks Emmerich's films all the time, but their recent 2012 spoof was just a wasted collection of pee and racism jokes. 2012 itself is so over the top, ridiculous, and utterly huge, that for once, no satire could be funnier than this target.

The first 30 minutes of 2012 are just a slow setup, with the occasional bit of unintentional comedy. But once California is taken out, the insane nature of 2012 and Emmerich really takes off. There may not be a more jaw-dropping sequence this year than when Jackson's family escapes California - no matter how laughable everything else is. And it only gets better and worse from there. For instance, a plane narrowly takes off before a runaway is destroyed not once, not twice, but three separate times - and I dare audiences not to roll in the aisles when Jackson actually outruns an giant cloud of ash. The impossible ways that Jackson and his family survive are the biggest laughs you'll have all year.

But 2012 is better known for destruction than for anything else, of course. And in this speciality, few are better than Emmerich. Most of the awe-inspiring annihilation was given away in trailers, yet fortunately, that doesn't scratch the surface of what 2012 blows up. Emmerich probably could have done without multiple shots of towers collapsing, for obvious reasons. But other than that, 2012 even surpasses Independence Day for massive, jaw-dropping CGI obliteration that must be seen to be believed.

Unfortunately for 2012, it cannot cram all 150 minutes with explosions, as much as it tries. The full blown insanity on display in the "human drama", and in the more aggravating disaster movie cliches, is all too reminiscent of how Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen went so wrong. But at the least, Emmerich's style lets the viewer have fun in mocking it, while Michael Bay's incompetence is more infuriating than funny.

Somehow, Emmerich gets a lot of respectable actors to battle the apocalypse. John Cusack is a fitting choice as the "Everyman" trying to save his family, but the sheer lunacy of his escapes overshadows everything else about him. Chiwetel Ejiofor, who should be a major star any year now, is stuck trying in vain to anchor the melodramatic parts of the story, along with Danny Glover as the President. Oliver Platt and Woody Harrelson have the right idea to chew whatever scenery isn't destroyed, as Platt all but twirls a mustache as the evil G-Man in charge, and Harrelson goes bug-eyed as the hippie radio host. Amanda Peet and Thandie Newton are more wasted, though actor/director Tom McCarthy salvages something from his inevitably expendable stepfather character.

The Mayans had a good imagination when they came up with their 2012 theory, though they had nothing on Roland Emmerich. It takes a mind like his to fill in the blanks of our destruction, and make it more of a laugh-out-loud CGI orgy than a tragedy. Of course, since he went so big and silly with 2012, even Emmerich may have a hard time topping this with his next disaster movie. But even if the Mayans are right, the end of days still won't stop Emmerich from eventually destroying the world one more time - and tacking on an Adam Lambert pop song for our final end credits.