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 I watched 2012 yesterday, and without a doubt, I would have to rank it as amongst the best--and possibly the best--disaster movie I've ever seen. It combines non-stop action (which stretches credibility to the extreme, but its a fun ride), with focus on one particular family, and the prerequisite scientists, politicians, and elite calling the shots.
The movie begins in India where a scientist who works around 1200 feet underground in a copper mine has been doing research. The largest sun flares in known history are erupting, and it's exciting the neutrinos under the planet. In other words, the earth's core is getting really, really hot. So hot, that it will melt and destablize the earth's core, resulting in catastrophic tectonic displacements.
During Junior High or High School, most of us learned about tectonic plates and the single landmass that once existed on earth. Those tectonic plates shifted, splitting the landmass and through time, moving them further and further apart until we have several different continents. Well, that's kind of the idea behind the tectonic displacement theory mentioned in the movie. Only, instead of a gradual shifting, these displacements occur fast. Nearly instanteously. And it wasn't a small shift, but huge 1,000 mile shifts. To give you idea of how huge, Wisconsin settles at the south pole.
That's the pseudo-science of the movie, now to the special effects. Imagine every natural disaster movie you've ever seen: asteroid, hurricane, earthquake, tornado, frigid temperatures and volcano. It has the flooding seen in asteroid movies, the devastation of hurricane/tsunami movies, the California-splitting-and-falling-into-the-sea earthquakes, and the nuclear explosion of volcano's erupting as the earth's crust melts. The only thing it didn't have was frigid temperatures...although there is one scene near Mt. Everest that could technically be included.
As for the protagonists and antagonists, I have to applaud the writer's. Excellent job. I related to both sides. The "bad" guys weren't all bad, merely conflicted and all too human in their decision-making and/or behaviors. They were realistic enough to keep the movie from becoming a farce. And yeah, we could guess who would die and who would survive, but the movie was enthralling enough to overlook that.
That a disaster movie managed to pull a few tears from my eyes was unusual, but it did. I have to admit, there were many scenes that strained the limits of credibility...but I enjoyed them. I don't go to the movies to see facts but fiction. And if that fiction gets a bit cheesy or creates scenarios that would have been impossible in real life...well...it's fiction. That's what fiction is! Without overworking the scenes, the viewer was confronted with moments of sacrifice and selfishness, with irony and blatant unfairness, and the conflict between needs must versus needs should.
I walked away from the theater still immersed in the experience. My mind took me beyond the "ending" --the consequences facing the survivors for the decisions they made between needs must and needs should. For example, letting the wealthy buy safety provided the front money for building these safe havens, but how would they survive afterwards? Society's elite and idle rich would be the least able to survive the hardships of a devastated planet. For survival, it's the laborers--farmers, builders, mechanics, etc.--that become the most valuable asset. And the two-of-each-kind scenario falls short in saving wildlife because the predators would need meat, and there wouldn't be enough meat to keep them alive without sacrificing at least one of a pair weekly.
Ah well. I wasn't assigned the job of determining mankind's fate after the earth is devastated.
So then, my final word? If you like disaster movies, you must watch this movie. It thrills the mind, senses and emotions...and I can't say that about most disaster movies. |
