Just to clear things up, I haven't got a clue what's going to happen in 2012, but I am absolutely unequivocally certain that there won't be a more cataclysmically idiotic film released between now and the end of time than Roland Emmerich's recently released assault on world famous landmarks, 2012.
Emmerich is famous for blowing 99.8% of his films' budgets on special effects, and then deploying the remaining 0.2% on catering, hairdressing, scriptwriting and acting (in that order).
If you've seen Independence Day (interstellar travelling warrior race blows world to bits and is undone by a 1990s Apple Mac laptop, guess they didn't want to pay £29.99 for decent antivirus software) or The Day After Tomorrow (massive storm floods and then freezes the Northern Hemisphere before easing slightly to leave a mild day with sunny spells and the entire US population emigrating to Mexico), you'll know that Mr Emmerich seems to have some kind of fetish with destroying tourist hotspots. If that turns you on in a slightly puzzlingly erotic way, you're in for an enormous amount of fun with this film.
Anyway, without further digression and padding, our film begins with one of our lead actors visiting some kind of physics experimental type place in India. Prepare to be hit in the face with a dodgy physics shovel. Apparently, this research centre in India, which resembles some kind of half sweat-shop knitwear factory and bat cave hybrid, has discovered that neutrinos have mutated and are now effectively microwaving the core of the Earth.
Oh for fuck's sake.
Just think about this for a second. By way of explanation, neutrinos are particles emitted by the sun which barely interact with normal matter, normal matter being the stuff you and I are made of. Indeed, to detect neutrinos, you generally have to build an enormous underground chamber, fill it with water and hope that one of the zillions of neutrinos that fly through it accidentally nudge something and cause a sensor to go off.
Now the scriptwriters are saying that neutrinos have suddenly mutated and are boiling the earth from within. What about people? Why wouldn't they suddenly be boiled from within? After all, 50 billion neutrinos pass through every person every second of every day. No? Me, neither.
I've heard of suspension of disbelief, but this is luring disbelief into a darkened alley, beating it senseless with heavy objects, tieing it up, shoving it into the boot of a 1980s Cortina, taking it to the docks and putting it in a metal container whose eventual destination is Belize. In short, it's fucking idiotic. Five minutes into the film, and every cell in my single body is embarrassed to be there.
Mind you, I knew it wouldn't be a good day when at least eight people in the cinema laughed at the Vodafone advert, where the baldy titrash says "Catch a goat love, you've pulled."
Hey-ho, on with the film. After what seems like an interminable thirty minutes of presidential edicts and indifferently acted scenes in which people argue the relative merits of whether or not to tell people that the planet is going to boil and they're all going to die, we meet another of the main characters, John Cusack.
Going one better than phoning in a performance, John Cusack texts his performance in. He's a down-on-his-luck writer of pulp science fiction, divorced from his wife, who has a dysfunctional relationships with his kids and is working as the chauffeur of some kind of Russian oligarch and his spoilt twin boys. The Russian is played by Zlatko Buric, a man possessed of the strangest voice in living history. Think of a frog with a heavy cold gargling treacle, and you have some idea of how he sounds. And yes, it does end up grating.
After an obligatory scene showing how crap and unreliable as a father he is, John Cusack takes his children camping to Yellowstone Park*.
*Coincidentally, the largest volcano in the world and home to Yogi bear. It's also the setting for a scene from Star Trek V, but if I told you that you'd think I was a right twonk. You'd especially think I was a twonk if I told you that it was the scene where William Shatner was climbing a mountain, got spooked by a rocketboot-wearing Spock, fell off the mountain and proceeded to sing 'Row Row Row Your Boat' with Spock and Bones. So I'll spare you that. Besides, Star Trek V is the shittest of all the Star Trek films, and I've seen them all loads of times. It's the one where they meet God.
Woody Harrelson pops up here, playing a lank-haired conspiracy theorist, with a map to where the governments are secretly buiding arks for rich people. The price for these tickets aboard the arks by the way, is $1 billion dollars.
I will NOT do the film. I have acting credibility, I have standards, I have dignity...I...I...that's an enormous amount of money. When do we start shooting?
Whilst at Yellowstone, Cusack and his kids inadvertently stumble upon the US military who are investigating increased volcanic and seismic activity at the park. After almost being imprisoned, they are only saved after the chief seismologist (another central character in this film), vouches for him by saying he once read his book.
That's right. Despite gaining access to an area clearly marked as being out of bounds, under control of the US military and with authorisation to use lethal force, Cusack is let off the hook as a government scientist once read his shit book.
Once back at home dropping the kids off in his company limo, we get to the film's first real set piece and the introduction of one of the most egregious abuses of seismology ever to take place. I'm not claiming to be a seismologist, but my vague recollections and a quick trip to Wikipedia tells me that earthquakes tend to occur at a single point, with the energy released in waves radiating outwards from that point (the epicentre).
In this film, we've got a malicious marauder of an earthquake with a limousine fetish. With the gang all aboard Jon Cusack's magic limo, buildings tumbling all around, the very Earth ripped and torn asunder, this limousine-seeking earthquake follows the heroes* through about seventeen right turns. By my calculations, they travelled forty yards and made five U-turns. But anyhow, they escape for now, and manage to fly a plane back to Yellowstone, to pick up the fabled map to where the world governments are building arks for rich people. I'm not sure how these people financed their $1billion tickets, but I'll bet a good portion of them borrowed it from RBS and the British taxpayer will end up footing the bill.
In the next scene, we're treated to Jon Cusack managing to find the map, Woody Harrelson being engulfed by lava on his way to cash his cheque for appearing in this film, and then Jon Cusack being chased by lava. In fact, Jon Cusack ends up being chased by so many forces of nature, he must wonder if the planet holds some kind of gigantic fucking grudge against him. After (yawn) just about evading the lava and avoiding falling into a gaping maw to the roiling pits of flame that below, Cusack manages to reboard the plane. They then just about (bigger yawn) escape the dust and ash cloud from Yellowstone's final cataclysmic explosion and make their way to Las Vegas in the hope of finding some better lines to read.
This film is now developing a pattern of: Journey - Explosion - Near Escape - Journey - Explosion - Miraculous Escape - Journey - Explosion. Don't expect it to change too much.
They reach Las Vegas where they somehow purloin a large cargo plane carrying some extraordinarily expensive cars. I think I spotted a Lamborghini, a Ferrari and a 1985 Ford Fiesta. Again, the world below explodes and they (yawn) just about escape from the rising explosion and dust. Further banality continues and then the most massively contrived situation in cineamatic history is committed to celluloid.
The heroes (and I use this term loosely) realise that they haven't got the fuel to travel to China where the arks are going to be launched from and resign themselves to their fate.
Now, as stated above, the Earth is undergoing massive upheaval and our heroes are left tragically short on fuel, meaning they'll be thousands of miles away from their goal when the plane's fuel is depleted. What do you think the odds would be of the Earth rearranging its surface so that our heroes now have enough fuel to reach their destination? Yes, that's right. It really is that tragically bad. Words fail me. Well, swear words don't, but I've already used a lot of those so I'll remain silent and let the glory of this film sink in.
Anyway, the plane reaches it's now conveniently relocated location, and some further unexciting drama takes place which leaves the party having to escape the plane by driving out of the rear of the plane in midair in the sports cars. They meet the family of some Chinese workers and a Tibetan monk (or similar) who agree to let them sneak into the giant hollowed-out mountain where the arks are being built.
Simply put, the arks are four seafaring vessels that each hold 400,000 people. They've been built over a period of three years up in the Himalayas in a hollowed-out mountain. Did I mention that they were built in total secrecy? This isn't just insulting the audience's intelligence, it's carrying out a decades-long campaign of hatred against it.
I don't think I've ever seen such a moronic film. And there's another thirty minutes to go. Holy shit.
Our bunch of boring, cliched twats have now managed to sneak into the base, and are busily trying to stow away on one of the aforementioned arks. Another contrived chain of events now takes place leading to one of the four arks malfunctioning, leaving the 400,000 guests all paid up with nowhere to stay.
They obviously don't like this at all, not one little bit, having paid their $1billion. They storm another of the arks but the head honcho is having none of it. It requires an Oscar-winning speech by the seismologist who earlier saved Jon Cusack before the gates are opening. At this point, I had tears in my eyes. Fuck all to do with the speech of course.
Anyway, the film was nearly at an end, and I had stopped paying too much attention. Another malfunction means that the ark our heroes are aboard can't shut its doors properly, and with a tidal wave fast approaching, it's left to Jon Cusack to save the day by turning some wheels, fixing a few bolts and nipping down to the B&Q for a few bits. And nearly dying another eight times.
In the final five minutes, most of the major characters die, Jon Cusack narrowly escapes death another twenty times, and some shenanigans happen when the ark is almost dashed upon the rocks of Mount Everest by a vast tidal wave. As a result of the profound rearrangement of the Earth's surface, Mt Everest is a lot lower, Africa is a lot higher, and Milton Keynes is at the North Pole.
Our seismologist friend kops off with the late American President's daughter (Thandie Newton), Jon Cusack rekindles his relationship with his ex-wife and children and to be honest, it all gets a bit Love Boat at the denouement. Actually, watching every single episode of The Love Boat at half speed would be better than watching this monumental lake of shit again. The barking mad bastards are actually thinking of making a spin-off series.
Final rating: 0.01 / 9
I would gladly have the world end before another movie of this standard is made.
