2012

What it's about:

Author Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) discovers a global conspiracy to cover up an impending global disaster, with plans in place to save only the important and super rich. As the first cracks begin to appear and people around the globe are thrown into panic by earthquakes and tsunamis, he leads a small group of survivors to try and find the ships that are meant to withstand the catastrophe.

What we thought:

2012 is director Roland Emmerich’s latest CGI vehicle and hence should be approached with extreme caution. If anyone remembers last year’s dreadful 10 000 BC, they’d be justified in passing 2012 over as another dull, bloated, mess of an action movie that is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Luckily, times have changed and 2012 is actually not that terrible.

In order to get anything out of 2012, it’s important to switch off your brain as you enter the cinema. There is a lot of portentous dialogue about the end of the world, and what we as a species have done to deserve it, but it all sounds ridiculous, as does the pseudo science used to explain the phenomenon. Like 10 000 BC, it is a world as imagined by a sugar powered teenage boy who has been brought up on a diet of brainless action movies and the Hallmark channel.

The fun starts when the disaster actually strikes, and you can see where the film’s budget went. Occasionally there are some iffy-looking graphics, but most of the time the spectacle is impressive and fast moving enough to keep you entertained. The catastrophes that occur include helpless people staring in horror as some natural disaster looms over them, or our plucky band of survivors miraculously managing to outrun earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and anything else the world throws their way. Many of the scenes look like they’re from some amazing video game and I found myself wishing that it was me fleeing earth tremors in a turbo limousine while the world explodes around me.

As exhilarating as a lot of the action is, it’s mired by a lot of sickly sentimental dross like good-hearted scientist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his conversations with his jazzman father, and US president, Danny Glover, who gives tear jerking speech after tear jerking speech. It’s a brainless blockbuster, so it’s almost forgivable, but the two-and-a-half hour running time isn’t. The final hour might as well be the first hour of the movie looped – stuff gets destroyed and John Cusack flees from disaster, and it all gets extremely tedious. Tack on a ludicrously cheerful conclusion, and voila! Money in the bank!

As much as there is to criticise about 2012, there is also much to enjoy if you can ignore how absurd it all is. The buttock-numbing length may prove a challenge for some as it drains the thrill from even the flashiest edge-of-your-seat moments.