In case you were wondering, I am not referring to December 21, 2012. I’m referring to November 13th, 2009, the opening day of the new Roland Emmerich film.
Now to be fair, this movie did not intend to be more than a disaster movie, and as far as disaster movies go, this passes with flying colors. As anything else that it tries to be…it fails, and ironically enough, it fails disastrously. It has special effects that are practically blinding, and sometimes are more ridiculous and over-the-top than Woody Harrelson’s acting, but in some cases, it works.
Our story begins in 2009, and the world is changing. Stuff happens. It isn’t important, trust me. 2010, Obama seems to have aged 50 years as the president is played by the corpse of Danny Glover. The head honchos of the world are told that they have a couple years left before we all die. We fast-forward to 2012, where our hero, played by John Cusack (I assume John Cusack was hired before they realized the character was supposed to be a hero) awakes from a nap…and everything goes downhill from there. John Cusack is a deadbeat father, and terrible writer (So is the character he plays). He goes to pick up his kids, played by Thing1 and Thing2, from their home where they live with their mother (Amanda Peet), and her boyfriend Gordon (Thomas McCarthy).
Sidenote: Now, let me tell you a few things about Gordon. He is the boyfriend to the love interest of the main character. He is stupid. He is selfish. He makes sarcastic remarks. He says things that sound dougebaggy, but actually is the cruel truth. He also is a doctor who specializes in breast implants. I won’t tell you if he lives, or dies, but if you guess that he lives, then you are wrong.
Cusack runs into a crazy guy (Woody Harrelson) who tells him that the world is going to end, and the rich people are buying seats on spaceships...sure ok. So John Cusack is trying to save his family while this Russian millionaire is trying to get to the ship with his kids, girlfriend, and pilot. Also there is a scientist Adrian (some dude) is at the White House preaching fire and brimstone (in a completely scientific manner) and Oliver Platt plays the heartless jackass, Carl Something, who is everything we hate about government mixed together and given a forked tongue (the dude even lets his mother die. Hell, even Darth Vader loved his mother.) Also the president’s daughter is like there or something.
So in case you haven’t noticed by the premise that seems to best Homer’s work in length, this over-complex story suffers from having about 43 more characters than needed. I didn’t care about any of the characters because they all get about 10 minutes of screen time a piece. And they can’t have a basic story either, they have to make things complex. Why? What is the point? If you want a movie with good visuals and action, interesting characters, a message that will change people’s ideas, and a complex and interesting story, you need to get some better writers. It is clear that the people trying to make this story know nothing but earth-shattering kabooms. And that’s not a bad thing, just stick to what you know. This leads me to another grievance I have about this crap. The writing…or lack thereof.
The writing was atrocious. There is an actual scene where two characters are in a grocery store talking about their relationship while an earth-splitting (literally) earthquake is coming right for them. Norman says “This whole thing is tearing us apart.” Queue the earthquake to come crashing in between them. It was at this point I realized that mankind has not learned from the mistakes of Batman and Robin. Woe to you, foul movie.
But the issues with the writing don’t nearly end there. Throughout the movie, we are given these pretentious monologues about how important our decisions are to making this earth a good place. In fact, many of these speeches have such unfathomable cheeriness during the end of days, you just want to slap the bastards and recite some excerpts from Lord of the Flies. And the biggest problem is that this goes on for hours while bigger action could be taking place. But instead we need to listen to a presidential address that sounds like it was written by a five-year-old, and endless speeches about humanity. Does any meaning resonate in those heartfelt speeches?...fuck no.
The characters are blander than a piece of neutral colored cardboard with a picture of a John Cusack cutout holding another piece of neutral colored cardboard. Upon reading the Wikipedia article for the movie, I realized that there was an entire family of characters that I had forgotten about (and they had their own subplot and everything). That’s pretty difficult to do. This movie also has a thorough misunderstanding of how people work. The movie tries to be a popcorn movie for the first 2 hours, making the characters animated, and at the same time, bland. For the last half hour, these people are the kindest, most optimistic idiots ever. Ardian is apparently the only world leader who believes that all people are equal, and gives an entire monologue on why its important to help people. Everyone applauds, save for Carl, who is seething in a tub of his own hatred and evilness while he plots more ways to keep the working man down and steal away all his monies. All of the characters are entirely motivated by one thing each, and they have one thing about them that is unusual. That makes them interesting right? The girl collect hats, The boy likes Gordon better. Gordon is a jackass. Carl is government. Adrian is Jesus. John Cusack is the guy people should be able to relate to (but can’t). You can find deeper character development in Rocket Power (Yes. I went there. Do something Tito.)
It also seems that no one can just die. These people have to top the final destination movies in their grand ridiculousness, and top Passion of the Christ in their meaning (that’s right. Every 2012 death screams “It’s the Jews’ fault”). Seriously, must every single character with a name be a goddamn sacrificial lamb?! How many times to the words “Go on, I’ll catch up with you” or “It’s ok. I’ll stay behind” or “My God, why have you forsaken me?” echoed in our annoyed ears? 2012 has a lot of characters in the movie and by the time they are two hours in, they begin running out of creative ways for people to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. 45 minutes in, the president decides to stay at the White House, to help the people who have been hurt by that mean little Armageddon. 2 hours 20 minutes in, a father falls to his death by pushing his fat oaf of a son to safety. And the worst part is, when it works in war movies, or horror films, what the hell is the point of staying behind in a disaster film. Are you going to hold off the planet for as long as you can? Are you going to shoot down tons of enemy nazi tidal waves, before you are overrun? It doesn’t work like that. Look let’s compare shall we? I will show you how much easier and more entertaining it could have been to kill off characters:
Characters death
Charlie: gets hit with a flying piece of Yellowstone Park, because he would prefer to watch a cool explosion and die, rather than miss it, and live. Final Words “Remember people, you heard it first from Charlie”
Mr. President: Survives an earthquake just so he can be cockslapped by a quadruple disaster. A giant battleship getting carried by a tidal wave to crash into the White House, during an earthquake/nuclear winter. Last words “Baby…I’m coming home.”
How they should have died
Charlie: He should have lived.
Daughter: Peeing her pants. The overwhelming irony probably would have caused me to do the same. Last Words: There is no God.
Gordon: He should have lived as well. Plot twist!
The President: In full body armor, wielding dual shotgun swords, fighting off the waves of Nazi tidal waves, while chewing on the souls of the foul beasts of nature.
Last Words: Fuck you, nature!
Sasha the pilot: lack of hope. He gave up back when he was in Russia, and kicked back with a bottle of vodka and embraced the destruction of the Motherland.
Last Words: Это ваш капитан, подписывая (In English: This is your captain, signing off)
See, I’ve spent 5 minutes and already I like my version better.
Now, is it just me, or do disasters have some sort of vendetta against society in Roland Emmerich films. Day after tomorrow, the coldness practically hunts down Dennis Quaid. In Independence Day…well those were aliens with an agenda, not nature, but still. Disaster follows these people wherever they go. “They live in California? I’ll sink all of Los Angeles”. “They are trying to take off in a plane. I’ll make the runway crumble under them”. “They are in Yellowstone Park? What’s volatile in Yellowstone-Oh ok, I’ll just blow up Yellowstone Park”. “They are still escaping?! Time to throw meteors, fecal matter, and Russians at them. No one can withstand an attack of that multitude!” (Now reread those past few sentences, bearing in mind that pissed off nature sounds like Skelator from He-Man.)
As for the disasters, some of it looks spectacular (the special effects, not the disaster themselves) and some…well how would you react if a 30-foot donut was rolling at you? It’s all well and good, it just is overwhelming sometimes, and after you go through the adrenaline rush, they toss some Ritalin our way for another hour or so.
Overall, this movie is a lot like Glenn Beck. It mistakes being pretentious for being profound, it thinks it knows what its talking about (but really makes no sense), mistakes being annoying for being interesting, and really does nothing more than explosions and destruction. Now had the movie just stuck to the last part mentioned, and maybe made the characters tolerable, I would have given this a good review. And I know that this movie had good intentions, with an interesting idea, and some good potential, but let’s remember, Hitler had good intentions. Sometimes Hollywood swings for the fence and strikes out, and sometimes we think we will have Daniel Day-Lewis, and we get John Cusack.
Final Rating 2.5/10
