2012 Movie Review | 2012 Review | 2012 Movie Reviews

2012 Movie Review | 2012 Review | 2012 Movie Reviews

“2012” Movie Review — Remember “Independence Day,” that alien invasion movie with great special effects that made a ton of money?

You don’t remember it half as well as its director, Roland Emmerich. Because he turned it into a blueprint for “2012.”

2012 (PG-13) Columbia (158 min.) Directed by Roland Emmerich. With John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor. Now playing in New Jersey.

STEPHEN WHITTY’S RATING: TWO STARS

Ratings note: The film contains approximately 6 billion acts of violence.

That first movie had a geeky scientist hero (Jeff Goldblum), a dad with family issues (Will Smith), a heroic president (Bill Pullman), a lone wingnut (Randy Quaid), a crabby Jewish father (Judd Hirsch), a cute dog in jeopardy and lots of international monuments blowing up.

This new movie has a geeky scientist hero (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a dad with family issues (John Cusack), a heroic president (Danny Glover), a lone wingnut (Woody Harrelson), a crabby Jewish father (George Segal), a cute dog in jeopardy and lots of international monuments blowing up.

Well, there is one difference. The first movie wasn’t boring.

This one, however, which clocks in at well over 21/2 disaster-prone hours, is pretty stultifying. Actors say silly lines with deadly seriousness. Exposition is wielded like a sledgehammer. All you can do is grit your teeth and wait for the next wave of destruction.

So what makes “2012″ a four-star movie? In an era in which Hollywood seems unable to execute even the most uncomplicated formulas, the ones that used to come easily, “2012″ is, pardon the expression, a revelation. It gets everything right. The actors are right: John Cusack as a sardonic failed novelist, Amanda Peet as his wife, Tom McCarthy as her nice-guy new husband, Chiwetel Ejiofor as a conscience-stricken scientist, Oliver Platt as a snappish White House official, WoodyHarrelson as a radio-host crackpot. The storytelling is right: You will never be bored, for there will always be questions to answer. Who will survive? How will Cusack get his family to China, where salvation awaits the rich, the connected and the just plain lucky? What will Emmerich blow up next? And the dialogue is right: a rich blend of wisecrack and cheese, with a few moist-eyed goodbyes sprinkled here and there for good measure.

Most important, the special effects are so right. In fact, they are incredible. Emmerich is a virtuoso of panoramic cataclysm, and each of his dozens of wide shots is as densely packed with hellish detail as a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Power lines snapping in an earthquake, sparks flashing like distant fireworks; Honolulu on fire; mournful giraffes in slings, airlifted by helicopters through the snowy Himalayas.

Is “2012″ art? Absolutely not. It reminds us that cinema exists not only to make art but also to expertly create sensation like no other medium. When done well, that can be just as valuable and just as astonishing. But is “2012″ a sublime example of the kind of huge-budget entertainment that Hollywood does best — indeed, the only kind of moviemaking at which Hollywood continues to excel? Yes. It is certainly the best movie of its kind ever made. It should (but surely will not) be the last movie of its kind ever made. After “2012,” would-be Emmerichs will have a hard time impressing audiences with their asteroids and their space invaders. This is the way the world ends: with a bang.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810045661/video/16465382

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