2012
Rated PG-13 // Is it worth $10? Yes; Hudak grades it a ‘B’

By Dan Hudak // hudakonhollywood.com

Spectacular and senseless, jaw dropping and mind numbing, “2012” epitomizes the joy of big-budget Hollywood grandeur when it’s done right. The movie has flaws, but director Roland Emmerich (“Independence Day”) mostly succeeds in giving us everything we want an end-of-the-world disaster flick to be. That is, unless you want plausibility and reality, in which case you’re definitely watching the wrong movie.

Although the dates loosely coincide, the story has nothing to do with the end of the Mayan calendar on Dec. 21, 2012. Instead, it opens in 2009 as geologist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers that particles from the sun’s explosions are heating the Earth’s core. In three years Earth will overheat, tectonic plates will shift and the geography of the planet will (dangerously) change.

He reveals his finding to the president’s chief of staff (Oliver Platt), and soon the president (Danny Glover) and other heads of state are preparing for doomsday. The plan is to build large ships for people to inhabit, but because time is short only a few are constructed, and only those who’ve bought a ticket, which costs  a billion euros, will be allowed in. Others will not even be told about the looming apocalypse, citing the preservation of the human race.

It therefore comes as a great surprise to most of the population that, as Earth’s self-destruction begins, Los Angeles has terrible earthquakes before sinking into the ocean. Fortunately for Kate Curtis (Amanda Peet), her ex-husband Jackson (John Cusack) is a failed writer-slash-skilled driver who can maneuver limos and RVs into and out of imminent danger. Along with their two kids (Liam James and Morgan Lily) and Kate’s new boyfriend (Tom McCarthy), they have at least three daring airplane escapes and numerous other near-disasters as they try to survive.

All the visual effects are spectacular, whether it’s an earthquake, tumbling mountains or unbelievably high tsunamis (with an estimated $260 million budget, they’d better look darn good). But when you think about it, viewing mass destruction is an odd thing for us to desire. We smile and think it’s cool to watch, but reality suggests billions of people are dying, making it a bit ironic that we’ve enjoyed such genocide.

Then again, this isn’t supposed to be realistic. The story, which was written by Emmerich and Harald Kloser, has all the requisite disaster movie clichés: martyrs, family troubles, a loon who knows more than others (Woody Harrelson), selfishness, pets in peril, etc. More creativity with the numerous subplots would’ve kept it more interesting and less tiresome throughout.

Still, the effects are so good you likely will not care. So grab your popcorn and enjoy — this one needs to be seen on the big screen.

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