2012 (2009)

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"If you've seen one building fall, one car overturn, one ship sunk, you've seen it all: nor does dialogue save the day."

2012

Columbia Pictures

Reviewed for MovieWeb by Harvey Karten

Grade: C

Directed by: Roland Emmerich

Written By: Harald Kloser, Roland Emmerich

Cast: John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Thomas McCarthy, Woody Harrelson, Danny Glover

Screened at: AMC Empire NYC, 11/9/09

Opens: November 13, 2009

Is "2012" apocalypse new? No, sorry, it's apocalypse same 'ol. Unless you're one of the a new generation of moviegoers that have never seen "Independence Day" or "The Day After Tomorrow" (both directed by "2012," helmsman Roland Emmerich), you've taken this roller-coaster ride before. To paraphrase Spiro Agnew, if you're seen one building topple, one wave immerse thousands, one statue crushed, several people falling through the cracks to their death, one giraffe and one elephant hauled onto a would-be Noah's ark-well, you've seen 'em all.

So what's left in "2012" to delight us? Why the story, of course. Sad to say, the dialogue ranges from moronic to idiotic, but not without leaving considerable room for audience unintentional laughter-though you've got to hand it to the principals in the cast for not cracking up from what they're saying in rhythm with the breaking down up of the earth's surface.

Anyway, to make a long, long, two and one-half hour story shorter, leave it to the Mayans. Thousands of years ago they knew the precise date for the earth's demise; that would be December 21, 2012, just before Christmas and what an irony! The good news is that we've all got three years to live it up before packing it in. The bad news is that we can't blame George W. Bush for the calamity (sorry W, you've surprisingly managed to defer the apocalypse), nor can we blame Iranian President Iminneedofjihad, much as he'd like to take the credit for transferring North America to the South Pole. Blame Mother Nature. Because of an alignment between the sun and the planets on December 21, 2012, the earth's crust simply began to melt, dragging worldwide civilization with it. In this case, almost everybody fell between the cracks including the fortune-cookie spouting Tenzin Lama of Tibet.

Each character in this drama is a human trait, so clearly defined that it could be affixed to everyone's forehead.

John Cusack as failed novelist Jackson Curtis starts out as a loser whose wife left him, taking their two kids, because Jackson Curtis paid more attention to his laptop than to her. This is mighty surprising since his ex-wife, Kate Curtis (Amanda Peet), is better looking than even the writer's Sony laptop, but that's just my opinion.

Sharing top honors with Cusack is Chiwetel Ejiofor as Adrian Helmsley, an assertive geologist and adviser to the President, who discovers what's about to happen and ultimately steers at least some people to safety. As a reward, he will get to date Laura Wilson (Thandie Newton), the President's daughter, a match that one feels confident that President Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover) would approve, while the President's ambitious chief of staff, Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt), has plans to save only the rich and influential. And he's a Democrat!

Woody Harrelson chimes in as Charlie Frost, a nutcase radio announcer stationed in Yellowstone National Park, who warns his listeners to repent, but who can take Woody Harrelson seriously? Tom McCarthy does yeoman work as Gordon Silberman, Kate Curtis's new squeeze, eager to start a new family to add to the two kids fathered by Jackson Curtis.

The picture cost Columbia in excess of $260 million, but with three years to go before extinction, the studio must have figured that you can't take it with you, so why not provide a hefty stimulus payment to hundreds of crew members including a CGI team who give us action in the air, on the water and on the ground, throwing in fires, explosions, car crashes, hard plane landings, sinking ships and sinking dialogue.

Think back to Fred Astaire's role as Harlee Claiborne in John Buillermin and Irwin Allen's 1974 film "The Towering Volcano." Putting Steve McQueen and Paul Newman in the stellar cast and have the destruction centered on just one building instead of the entire world, the cast and crew knew how to focus the attention of the audience instead of allowing it to dissipate from Yellowstone to the Yalu River.

Rated PG-13. 158 minutes. © 2009 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online