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John
Cusack stars in '2012.'
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Well, here’s my guilty pleasure
of 2009.
If there ever was a disaster movie, "2012" is it.
Forget the alien attacks or far-away asteroids. Forget citywide
or nationwide damage; "2012" is concerned with a
comprehensive demolition on a planety scale. If your goal is to
fork over $10 for some serious destruction, here it is: The film
that fits the bill.
I went in prepared for some big-league damage, and even I walked
away in a state of awe. Adrian (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a geologist
who we see arriving in India, greeted by a panicked colleague
who takes him down into the ground, plunging a few thousand feet
into the Earth’s crust.
It turns out the temperatures are rising down there, deep
beneath the mantle, heated almost like a burrito by a surge of
neutrinos from the sun that are effectively microwaving the
planet.
It’s 2009 – present day – and Adrian rushes to Washington,
where he meets with first a top government scientist and then
the president (Danny Glover) himself.
This surge of neutrinos is not going to stop, the temperature is
going to keep heating, and yet this sort of global warming will
cause far worse things than climate change. The Earth’s crust
is getting so hot that it’s about to melt, unleashing
unsuspected volcanoes, as the planet’s tectonic plates move,
and skyscraper-high tidal waves that will wipe out most of life
as we know it.
Cut to southern California, circa 2012 – perhaps America’s
region that is most vulnerable to fault lines and earthquakes.
Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) plays a fledgling writer. But after
taking his kids to Yosemite, which has been closed off in large
part by the government that’s terrified about the uprising of
a new volcano, he becomes convinced that the dire warnings of a
crazy cook he meets in the woods are correct.
Following the Mayan calendar, the Earth is on the verge of being
destroyed during an unlikely cosmic alignment during the winter
solstice. It’s a neat trick, to peg this all to 2012, but in
reality, the reasoning matters not. Audiences have come for
chaos, and whether this was 1950 or 2012, they shall be served
their just desserts.
Jackson rents a plane and flies out of both Los Angeles and Las
Vegas as the landscape collapses all around them. This results
in exploding homes and buckling interstate highways, not to
mention crumbling airport landing strips.
As tidal waves are unleashed, cruise ships capsize and India
braces for obliteration. One memorable scene cuts to the Vatican
to see the Pope preaching to the masses. As Earth buckles, both
the devout, the cathedral and the pontiff himself are destroyed.
Roland Emmerich, who has directed movies like "Independence
Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow," has always
shown a keen interest in how humanity would meet its judgment
day.
With insanity swirling all around, Jackson, divorced from his
kids’ mother, does his best to be the best dad possible. And
the president gives up his seat on the three spaceships built to
save humanity in order to prepare the nation for the last few
hours of America.
Sure, the whole setup is cheesy, that the earth is literally
detonating from within, but the only thing more intriguing than
the flawless special effects, which includes an aircraft carrier
being flipped on top of the White House, are the strands of
humanism we can see through all the green screen effects.
There are spaceships waiting to save more than 1 million souls
– and many of these seats have been sold to the highest
bidders; $1 million Euros per seat.
It’s a creepy prospect, that the wealthy and powerful should
inherit the earth, and "2012" views it as such. But
while the world burns, Adrian and Jackson and a few others show
the better side of humanity, as they struggle to find a way to
help out more than just the ultra-rich.
So while audiences will surely flock for the blood – and don’t
worry, most of the planet is incinerated without mercy – they
might just find themselves staying for the heart on display
here, about the worst of times bringing out the best in us all.
E-mail: SnyderReviews@hotmail.com
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