I have a question: Did Noah have this much trouble sailing his ark?
2012 is a long movie. The world is destroyed and John Cusack spends a lot of time flying miraculously through smoking lava and flying rocks. It starts well, with Chiwetel Ejiofor’s lovely face filling the screen; a character with warmth and compassion that’s completely shelved in favour of Cusack’s family troubles and ridiculous aeroplane antics (and a preposterous scene of him driving through a burning and gyrating
I’m really sorry, but movies like this used to taste sweeter and I know that there are going to be boys out there who thought it was a good old romp, but I’m on a rant and I can’t seem to stop. So read on, because if you’ve actually watched it, you’ll be nodding and chuckling in agreement in no time.
So, disaster strikes in the form of massive shifts in the earth’s crust. The build up to this, however, is confusing. There’s a meeting of leaders of all the ‘important’ countries, some famous pieces of art are mysteriously smuggled out of the ‘Louvre’ (as if anyone would give a shit about the Mona Lisa if the world was about to explode), and a madman at Yellowstone Park (Woody Harrelson in caricature mode) raves about the end of the world. Of course, we cotton on quite early that, although mad, there’s truth in what he’s babbling (on a side note: how could he afford a full radio broadcasting kit, a camper van and cross country motorbike without an obvious income? Yes, indeed, I was so irritated by this movie that things like that bothered me.)
Cusack gathers up his estranged wife and despondent children and heads to China (via Las Vegas) in search of the mysterious ‘arks’ that have been erected in secret to ferry the wealthy amongst us out of harms way (the ones they choose to show signing over their cash in exchange for ark tickets are an Arab in a fancy hotel suite in London and a dubious Russian, as if the Brits and Yanks are adverse to vulgar displays of wealth). The ‘secret’ part was deemed necessary so as not to create the mass panic that, say, a world disaster might cause. What do world governments think we’ll do if we’re told the end of the world is nigh? General fuckery and looting happens at the best of times, so why always the conundrum?
So the destruction goes on. And on. And on. Then, just as we are approaching the end, past the horrendous national stereotypes, past the part where giraffes are being air lifted onto the arks (no, apparently the animals won’t be going in ‘two by two, hurrah, hurrah’), the bloody ships can’t set sail. Cusack really plays the hero here, as he risks his life to solve the problem. The ‘will he or won’t he’ moment is kind of overshadowed by the unsettling feeling that the billions and billions of dollars and the world’s finest minds that built this high-tech machinery couldn’t prevent a little bit of rubber getting caught in the big door cogs. The real disaster (the small issue of the entire earth’s surface being wiped out) has already happened, and the family unit has been brought back together (nice step dad, who secretly knew that he never really competed with the ex, conveniently dies in a rather undramatic fashion), so was the last exertion really worth it? Questions, questions, questions. (The answer is no, if you’re wondering.)
The action is ridiculous and seems to revel in its own majesty and begs the questions: why do we want to see these images and what compels us to watch wanton destruction? Horrific news events get pumped into our brain boxes daily, with certain catastrophes propelled at us in a hyperactive image frenzy until we are transfixed on burning rubble and tear, blood and dust stained faces. We try to turn away, but can’t. It’s as if the movies are now competing with the news. ‘More, more, more’, we are apparently crying. I’m not a cynical person. I’m not whinging because I’m a spoil sport. I just didn’t like this movie. The reason why it falls down is because its attempts to help us form a human attachment to the characters fail and are replaced by a weird combination of eccentric American heroes, mass carnage seen from a bird’s eye perspective and clichéd plot devices that you can acknowledge are meant to keep you on the edge of your seats. Quite frankly, by the end of it all, I was too numb to care whether the Biblical tale had a happy outcome.
And on a final note…If anyone out there knows of research on the relationship between disasters and the reforming of broken homes/relationships in the movies, then please let me know. It’s just that there seems to be one too many films that rely on the doom of humanity to make women regret extricating themselves from their poor anguished husbands and settling for ‘the nice guy’/indulging themselves in their successful careers. Movies present the situation from the male viewpoint (females are always the objects of desire etc etc) and so we are overjoyed when they get to save the day and replant themselves where they rightfully belong. Maybe it’s the filmmakers’ way of fighting back against the emasculation of men. Maybe the disasters represent modern man’s confusion at their role in society and give them a chance to once again wield their masculinity. After all, people in the movies put the world to rights while the rest of us tend to just fuck it up…
