2012 Can't Come Soon Enough

I went on a heterosexual man date last night with a close friend of mine to see the newest entrant in the disaster-porn genre, 2012. Let me begin by saying that if this Roland Emmerich directed debacle is indicative of the cinematic fare Hollywood is poised to unleash to the masses, then I will welcome the Rapture with open arms.

(For those readers bemoaning a second consecutive post with nary a mention of sports, how about this: 2012 is like the Toronto Maple Leafs 2009-10 Season. I didn’t expect much going in, was hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but was ultimately left laughing at inopportune times and wondering how they could spend so much money on such a mediocre product.)

What a stinker. The movie was a complete mess from the beginning. Here is a spoiler-free rundown on my thoughts (warning: may contain spoilers):

At a robust running time of 2.5 hours, you would think there would have been more time spent on the explanation for the global catastrophe. Instead, we got two minutes of people saying “Oh my God” while looking distraughtly at computer screens and a half-baked explanation about neutrinos and solar flares.

Why is it that in every movie of this ilk the only people smart enough to figure out the doomsday scenario are Americans? This is how the US views the rest of the world. They sit there and use their brains to figure out how to save humanity while the rest of us sit there and fling our crap at each other.

The disaster scenes were incredibly cool the first couple of times, but after awhile you just get numb to all the destruction and laugh at how implausible everything is. The scenes were so obviously CGI’ed and on such a large scale that there was no emotional attachment to the thousands of people dying in these scenes. I was more attached to the fireballs and tsunamis.

The acting was atrocious. Danny Glover as the American President was the epitome of “don’t give a crap” acting. I would say his performance was wooden but that would be a disservice to trees everywhere. Woody Harrelson was the only redeemable actor in this film. He was excellent as always. Although, I’m pretty sure he didn’t know he was in a movie. He probably just thought he was on a bad acid trip.

Every formulaic emotional scene from every ‘end of the world’ movie is represented in this travesty: Stubborn old guy tries to make peace with his adult son, Divorced dad reconnects with his kids, ex-husband and wife rekindle their romance through tragedy, archetypal ‘jerk’ calls his infirm mother to say goodbye, evil Russian risks his life for his kids, etc.

It got so bad that I turned to my buddy at one point and said, “Hey, they haven’t done the dog narrowly escapes death yet.” Sure enough, ten minutes later, a dog miraculously snatches life from the jaws of death. Its owner didn’t make it. I did not see that coming.

By the end, I was openly cheering for the global cataclysm to kill everyone.

This is where this movie will find its niche. Go to an afternoon showing with a friend (so the theatre’s not too busy) and crack jokes for two hours. I had a great time. It’s a fun movie to see on the big screen with all of the effects and it’s a completely mockable farce.

One part I loved is when earthquakes rumble through the Vatican. The tremors split the Sistine Chapel in two. Where does the split occur? Right between God and Adam’s fingers in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. Of course. Symbolism, anyone? Emmerich doesn’t so much give the audience a lecture on the religious underpinnings of the end of the world as he does hit you over the head with it.

Unfortunately, there will be a small, but retarded group of people who will view this movie as a documentary and make our lives hell for the next two years.

I hate society.