《2012》
It's the end of the world according to Roland Emmerich,which at least guarantees that we go out with a bang and not a whimper.2012 stands as the director's grand end-of-days party; his crowning act of global vandalism:here is a film that thinks nothing of pushing California into the ocean,or knocking Christ the Redeemer off his perch above Rio,or flattening the White House beneath an aircraft carrier washed in by a tsunami.At one stage Woody Harrelson's wild-eyed radio preacher rolls up to explain that "something like this could only originate in Hollywood".And in this,as in all things,he preaches the truth.
Emmerich has already earned a reputation as the excitable Cassandra of the blockbuster circuit.His speciality is the cacophonous tale of doom; beefed-up B-movies which come augmented with Wagnerian special effects that all-but dwarf the human inhabitants.In the past he has had the planet threatened by aliens in Independence Day,munched by a monster in Godzilla and blanketed by ice in The Day After Tomorrow.For the nearly $200m spent on 2012,he has used an age-old (and inevitably disputed) Mayan prophecy as an excuse to mount his biggest,loudest demolition job to date.
The earth's crust is crumbling and the core is heating up like a microwave,and the final curtain is due on 21 December 2012.The world's elite are hastening to an escape route in a secret Himalayan mountain base.Emmerich duly gives us the collapse,the panic and the rush to possible safety,in a series of parallel plot-lines and then chasing them through to finish.
The most notable of these features John Cusack as Jackson Curtis,a failed writer and weekend father,who races to spirit his family out of danger.Elsewhere,Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a government scientist who finds himself shuttling between a noble US president (Danny Glover) and his cold-blooded chief of staff (Oliver Platt).This being a Roland Emmerich movie,the noble president finally opts to remain in Washington and go down with his people.For one brief,terrifying moment one wonders just what will finish him off:the aircraft carrier or the tide of schmaltz.
But then nobody ever looked to Emmerich for nuance or subtlety.2012,like all good disaster movies,is big and brash and gloriously over-the-top.One watches this knowing full well how dumb and unbelievable it all is,only to find your fists clenched and your brow sweating as one gut-wrenching action set-piece follows another.This,presumably,means that we believe it in the moment and that,with 2012,Emmerich has yet another hit on his hands.If the prophecies are to be believed,however,he has just three years to spend the money it earns.
