Determined To Succeed

It’s the End of the World As We Know It – a review of “2012″ – by Bill Ivory Larson

3.5 Buckets of Popcorn out of 4

I am such a sucker for disaster flicks. Bring on a trailer for films that feature plagues of locusts and angels fighting for humanity (the upcoming LEGION), asteroids hitting the earth (ARMAGEDDON and DEEP IMPACT), aliens invading (INDEPENDENCE DAY) or the world ending (I AM LEGEND and THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW) and I am so there.

And while I have been so let down in the past (the recent remake of POSEIDON was such a bad flick I want the two hours of my life back) the new end-of-days pic “2012″ didn’t let me down.

Put another way – the world blowed up real good!

Disaster movie maven Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) crafts this apocalyptic sci-fi thriller following the prophecy stated by the ancient Mayan calendar, which says that the world will come to an end on December 21, 2012. When a global cataclysm thrusts the world into chaos, divorced writer and father Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) joins the race to ensure that humankind is not completely wiped out. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Danny Glover, Amanda Peet, Thandie Newton, and Oliver Platt round out the cast of this end-of-the-world thriller co-scripted by the director and his 10,000 B.C. writer/composer, Harald Kloser.

Don’t get me wrong, there are things wrong with this picture (i.e characters who die unnecessarily, some you don’t care about at all, a couple too many near escapes, etc.) but this film has two things going for it that make it worth your time and discussion afterward:

1) It’s running time of over two-and-a-half hours allows the film to take its time and take you from one situation to another without too many leaps of logic or faith. As special effects films go, the way the characters and situations unfold is more real because the filmmakers simply took their time to set them up properly.

2) Oliver Platt’s character raises interesting questions about who lives and who dies and why. Questions that I had after the film and questions on the lips of all who saw it in the same auditorium with me. Would only those with money survive? Should there be a lottery of all world citizens to see who lives or not? The film doesn’t make his character truly evil. Instead, he is the person making the hardest decisions of all and doesn’t apologize for them. And I have to say his is the character that makes you feel uncomfortable but gives you food for thought.

Definitely see this latest Roland Emerich end-of-the-world film on the big screen. It’s worth it just for the effects. And if the world does come to an end on December 21, 2012 (folks, it’s just the end of ONE Mayan calendar. They had many) I want a seat as good for that as I did for this.

Roland Emerich, meet Irwin Allen. Irwin, meet your heir apparent.

John Cusack     …         Jackson Curtis

Amanda Peet    …         Kate Curtis

Chiwetel Ejiofor            …         Adrian Helmsley

Thandie Newton           …         Laura Wilson

Oliver Platt       …         Carl Anheuser

Thomas McCarthy        …         Gordon Silberman (as Tom McCarthy)

Woody Harrelson         …         Charlie Frost

Danny Glover   …         President Thomas Wilson

Liam James      …         Noah Curtis

Morgan Lily      …         Lilly Curtis

Zlatko Buric     …         Yuri Karpov

Beatrice Rosen …         Tamara

lexandre Haussmann     …         Alec

Philippe Haussmann      …         Oleg

Johann Urb       …         Sasha

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for intense disaster sequences and some language.

Runtime: 158 min