It starts with an Indian geologist, Dr. Satnam Tsurutami [Jimy Mistry] alerting American geologist Dr. Adrian Helmsley [Chiwetal Ejiofor] of rising temperatures in the world’s deepest copper mine [handily already mined out]. This is tied into abnormally strong sun flares and sufficient neutrinos that they have a mutating effect… Well, you get the idea. Scientific technospeak sets up Helmsley’s warning to Carl Anheuser [Oliver Platt], an influential member of U.S. President Thomas Wilson’s [Danny Glover] team. Before you know it, the heads of the most powerful heads of state in the world have come to an agreement to find a way to ensure human survival after the apocalypse to come.
While the politician’s are [gasp!] working together, we get to know the human faces of the film – struggling [and divorced] author Jackson Curtis [John Cusack] and his cute kids, Noah [Liam James] and Lily [Morgan Lily]; his ex, Kate [Amanda Peet] and her new guy, Gordon Silberman [Tom McCarthy]; blustery Russian billionaire, Yuri Karpov [Zlatko Buric], his twin sons Alec [Alexandre Haussman] and Oleg [Phillipe Haussman] and his girlfriend, Tamara [Beatrice Rosen] – and a host of cameos from George Segal, Blu Mankuma, Gillian Barber and others.
How are the remnants of humanity going to survive? Well, it has something to do with China – something Jackson finds out after briefly getting to know conspiracy buff/radio broadcaster Charlie Frost [Woody Harrelson]. Armed with a map from Charlie’s RV, he and his family [and Gordon] set out for China – starting in a twin engine plane flown, protesting all the way, by Gordon. The odyssey that they go on is echoed in an unexpected place – a monastery in Tibet.
Like most director/co-writer [with Harald Kloser] Roland Emmerich’s best known films [Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 B.C.], 2012 doesn’t make a lick of sense, but it’s a wild ride of natural catastrophes as Mother Nature finally reaches her limit and tries to send humanity back to the Stone Age – if any of them have the temerity to survive [which they will; this is a Roland Emmerich ride, after all].
Emmerich tries to balance scenes of Los Angeles falling into the sea; a huge luxury liner going Poseidon; building crumbling like piles of blocks at the hands of an angry child; a tsunami rising over the Himalayas, and so on, with human moments – shamelessly piling on stirring music and maudlin moments ‘til there’s nothing an audience can do but laugh. When the Curtis family [and Gordon] reach their objective [in spite of callous Chinese army personnel, betrayal by the Russian billionaire and more], naturally there’s one final obstacle that could [should] result in Jackson’s death – and possibly Noah’s.
By this point, laughter is not only a possible response it’s the only appropriate response. 2012 somehow manages to b fun through sheer desire to please. It’s ten different kinds of cheese, but on the right crust, ten kinds of cheesy can make for an ooey-gooey pizza delight. If you’re in the mood – like I was –for a super-cheesy movie, 2012 will give you all you can handle.
Final Grade: B
I was laughing the whole time and my daughter kept poking me because she thought I was behaving badly!!!!!!HA HA HA! It is so over the top loud and ridiculous that laugh was all I could do. However, my arm is really sore from being poked!
"2012" is an over-long standard disaster movie with a carload of overacting characters. Starts in the current year when some strange things are happening, then the nations of the earth work together to cope with the coming worldwide catastrophe. Good special effects –
but – at times, overdone.
GRADE = "B-"
Yikes i nearly cried to death it was so scary……….. They could've at least put in the end to tell the people that 2012 isn't going to be the end of the world sheesh……. It nearly gave me heartattack. i wonder how all those people acting in it survived in the tidal wave . Very good special effects but not exactly the best movie i have watched….. And just to tell u people don't watch the movie unless u like seeing explosion and people dieing and sadness….. :(…
i loved seeing Danny Glover as President of the United States, and the part where the Russian and communist Chinese leaders voted to save a hapless lot of common folk from getting swept away by a tsunami (in contrast to their American countrrerparts who callously were ready to let them drown)…such realism! LOL
The tagline is misleading really. The only reference to the "prophesies" is some loony in Yellowstone National Park.. I think next time they should ask a UK family to edit it! It was about 1 hour too long! Loved how they flew to Paris on the way to China.. and those mobile phones. Never failed to get a signal even when the tidal wave had engulfed them all! Take a cushion, suspend any disbelief, hate Americans, and enjoy!
The Eiffel was Los Vegas not Paris. And the effect of mantle meltdown occur sthis year from asteroid impact, not in 2012, and i assure you that mouonatins over 8000 feet will stay above water, maybe even the 13 Appalchians above 6000 feet.