moviereview colin fraser film movie australia review critic flicks
If you're looking for subtlety, you've come to the wrong place. 2012 is an end-of-the-world, doomsday disaster movie with a boy called Noah an a boat called Genesis. Geddit? It's like turbo-charged Irwin Allen with better special effects and a bigger sense of humour. In fact, take the best moments in The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Volcano, Earthquake, Airport and Armageddon then mix heartily with a liberal dose of Bond megalomania in oversized bunkers. Add a countdown-to-impact clock (digital, with female voice), a self-less President (fashionably black) and a broken family (nuclear) and you're done. All that's missing is the fruit cart.
Which is pretty much what Emmerich does for two and a half rowdy hours. Ancient Mayans knew the world would fall apart on December 21, 2012 (literally – mutant neutrinos have boiled the Earth's core like a microwave), so Jackson Curtis (a very watchable John Cusack) grabs his family and heads for the hills. Meanwhile international governments had prepared for the worst, building a bank of ships high in the Himalayas, the location of which looney Charlie Frost (bug eyed Woody Harrelson) has a map. So when California drops into the ocean, everyone converges on China. As Curtis yells to his wife: “when they tell you not to panic, that's when you run!”
It's all utterly preposterous of course, and Emmerich makes sure we know he knows how silly it is. Riddled with bone jarring dialogue and emotional scenes impossible to take seriously, it becomes part of the spectacle. And what a spectacle it is with above average effects and a pounding soundtrack that could wake the dead. Curiously, he even finds time for a little political posturing – such as noting a preference for Euros instead of US dollars, and ethnic cleansing in Tibet by Chinese officials. Not that he dwells on it, not when there are exploding super-volcanos and thousand metre tsunamis to contend with.
Remove brain, insert funny bone and set sail with 2012, one of the biggest, most ridiculous and most stupidly entertaining movies of the year. PS: If you've ever wondered why China has been so busy buying Australian ore, you're about to find out.
// COLIN FRASER
moviereview colin fraser film movie australia review critic flicks