(2012) Saving The Human Race: Why Bother?
I get a real hard-on for disaster films. I remember recording the made-for-TV movie “Aftershock: Earthquake In New York City” on VHS and renting Twister about a thousand times as a child. Maybe it’s because I was in a very large earthquake when I was 6, or maybe it’s because I’m a sick, sick person who loves tragedy.
Either way; I have seen every bad disaster movie (yes, including Dante’s Peak staring Pierce Brosnan, and about 80 other made-for-TV movies about volcanoes, or hurricanes, or nuclear plants melting down; why are there so many?). Yet I come away from all of them still generally satisfied with the American public (hey, there’s even some good acting in Aftershock- and you thought Jennifer Garner wasn’t a star before Alias) and not bitterly enraged.
All of that changed with 2012. Forget all the other movies I’ve blogged about, 2012 is literally the worst and also maybe the most expensive film ever to be made. I felt so betrayed after watching this film. There isn’t even one good “honey, the world is ending” talk or armagetiton joke. And you’d think with all the obscene special effects we invented after “Aftershock: Earthquake In New York City” that they could make a believable end to the human race.
No, no they could not. Or, they did not. Let me give away a crucial plot point; the world is ending. In the year 2012. BUT THATS NOT ALL, because that would be a really banal film. So in this movie, giant metal ‘arcs’ are built to save a small segment of the human race, you know, for breeding. But 90 percent of this film is a really gratuitous series of sequences in which John Cusack hears about the ships from Woody Harrelson (what?) and then struggles to get his family to the mountains of China.
Ridiculous escape-from-nature scenes ensue. What is it with these modern disaster films (Day After Tomorrow, anyone?) where suddenly you can outrun earthquakes? And volcanic explosions? And cold fronts? No, John Cusack, no matter how fast you drive your limo through the streets of Los Angeles, you cannot outrun tectonic plate motion.
And don’t get me fucking started on this weird overly personal subplot of a Russian mafia man with sideshow-esque twins. Or Cusack’s daughter who has a habbit of peeing her pants and concludes the movie and the survival of the entire human race with the words “I’m not afriad- no more pull-ups!”. If it were me, I would have been peeing my pants for about 4 days as the world literally collapsed around me.
The only thing I took from this film is that we should all be wearing Depends when 2012 hits, which actually is not a bad idea. And the relief that at least if we all die, no movie this bad will ever be made again.
