As disaster movies go, 2012 is an over-the-top blast of pedal-to-the-metal, 100 percent unadulterated hokum. It works on the nervous system, the retinas and the gut, largely avoiding the cerebral cortex and, thankfully, the tear ducts. Does 2012 confirm and continue Hollywood’s death spiral of million-dollar special effects and 10-cent emotionality? Sure. Is Roland Emmerich the world’s most self-indulgent moviemaker this side of James Cameron? You bet. Does he give you $12.50 worth of entertainment? Oh yeah, baby.
In lieu of a standard review of 2012 sprinkled with incisive analysis and plot points, I offer a modest list of random takeaways. The filmmaker clearly wishes to impart many life-affirming morals about love, loyalty, compassion and idealized, color-blind humanity, but here’s what I got:
The cause of the worldwide cataclysm, to the degree I could follow the bogus pseudo-scientific palaver, is the sun, and not global warming, dolphin-unsafe tuna or NASCAR. Existentially speaking, I could watch 2012 completely guilt-free by virtue that this apocalypse is certified 100 percent natural: My consumption, shopping patterns and general bad manners are in no way responsible. (You can tell that I really, really don’t want to give up imported beer.) So for once, it’s the end of the world as we know it and I really do feel fine.
Notwithstanding all the hot air and smoke that Emmerich blows at us, there’s something primitive and refreshing about the single- and simple-minded drive to survive that fuels the movie. Yes, there are any number of throwaway lines about civilization and culture, but they don’t elevate or even camouflage the basic hellbent impulse to postpone death. Consequently, 2012 is free of the stultifying pretension that “great artists” like Peter Jackson and George Lucas lavished on their doltish and enervating power plays between good and evil (the multi-part The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars flicks).
