2012 (2010)

Review: written May 2010

Spectacularly brainless and yet entertaining hokum

Yes, it's derivative, style over substance, cheesy and predictable. And yet, in spite of - or perhaps because of, these flaws, it's rollicking good fun. If approached firmly tongue in cheek, accompanied by a popcorn frame of mind, it's a pretty good watch. Make no mistake though, if you are annoyed by effects driven blockbuster movies which defy logic and science, then this film is not for you.

The movie follows fairly routine disaster movie narrative conventions.. there are disposable characters, and then the little guy caught up in the middle that we identify with, the scientists and politicians trying to come up with a resolution, and of course, being a Roland Emmerich film (Independence Day, The Day before Tomorrow, Godzilla) a dog with uncanny abilities to get out of tough scrapes. In this case, solar storms are having a disastrous effect on the earth's molten innards, with a resulting realignment of the crust. What does that mean? Well, it means that along with scientific credibility going out the window, we get not one of the usual disaster scenarios - we get every disaster scenario you ever saw before, all shoehorned into one movie. From Poseidon to Volcano, from Earthquake to The Day the Earth caught Fire, When Time Ran Out to... wow, yes, even actually some hints of Titanic. It's all way too much for one movie to actually create a credible storyline which maintains suspense, but switch the brain off, allow a goofy grin to come over your face as the characters race from one peril to the next with only seconds between them and doom, while admiring the prolific computer generated effects (which sadly rarely generate any real feeling of impending threat to the heroes / heroines) - and the movie somehow works.

Most of the cast play things fairly straight - that's ok, when the situations present all the tongue in cheek required. The exception is the ludicrously yet wonderfully over the top Woody Harrelson, as the proverbial ‘prophet of doom’.

It would be daft to dwell on the negative points. It would miss the point of the movie... It sets out to show some big screen effects driven thrills, with the brain required to be firmly in neutral, and that's what it does. The tagline of the movie was `We Were Warned'. Head into a viewing with that in mind, and you shouldn't go far wrong.