It’s the end of the world as we know it when a solar flare sends the Earth’s core into meltdown. The ancient Mayans predicted it would all be over in 2012, but as far as divorced father John Cusack, scientist Chiwetel Ejiofor, and US President Danny Glover are concerned, humanity’s time is not up yet. After Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, director Roland Emmerich speeds us to doomsday for a third time with an eye-popping display of global pandemonium.
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According to the spookily accurate Mayan calendar, the world will end on December 21st 2012. Which is a bit worrying for most of us, but wonderful news for Roland Emmerich, a filmmaker who loves to put humanity in its insignificant place.
Pity he didn’t do likewise with his last catastrophe 10,000 BC. But he’s back to devastating form with another gleefully apocalyptic epic that hits the spot with all the subtlety of an aircraft carrier crashing into the White House.
First, the science bit. In 2009, top boffin Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor) learns that Earth has been microwaved by the sun, causing its crust to slide around like the outside of a melting choc-ice.
Three years later, it’s clear that nothing can be done. But President Wilson (Glover) and the United Nations have made a contingency plan to ensure the survival of the human race.
Naturally it’s all very hush-hush. But on a camping trip to Yellowstone with his kids, struggling writer Jackson Curtis (Cusack) hears all about it from a crazy conspiracy theorist (Woody Harrelson, having fun).
Then, kerrr-ackkk, Earth comes apart at the seams. As Los Angeles crumbles around them, Jackson grabs the kids, his ex-wife (Amanda Peet) and her boyfriend (Tom McCarthy) and races back to find wild-eyed Woody.
Emmerich packs the movie with more acts of god than a deity on piecework, but the family’s flight from LA is a CG apocalypse to savour.
But there’s no time to catch your breath before Yellowstone turns into a supervolcano and Las Vegas falls like a house of cards.
From Russian billionaires and Tibetan monks to President’s daughter Thandie Newton and Her Majesty herself, anyone expecting salvation must get to China before the Earth drowns.
However, only Cusack’s sardonic screw-up and exasperated chief-of-staff Oliver Platt - the film’s cold, hard voice of reason – manage to rise above a script that has something preposterous for everyone to say.
And while the first half is a ramped-up megamix of Twister, Titanic, The Poseidon Adventure and Armageddon, the second is all a bit Moonraker. Fortunately, Emmerich pulls off the final countdown with nail-biting aplomb.
He also counters the biblical overtones by treating believers with secular disdain, first toppling Christ the Redeemer off his perch above Rio, then bringing down the Vatican around the faithful's ears.
They probably won’t like that in Wisconsin. But since that’s where 2012 is predicting the South Pole will end up, who cares?
If we’ve only got three years left, 158 minutes represents a heavy investment in time and popcorn. But the unrelenting pace, almighty effects and sheer tongue-in-cheekiness make it more than worth your while.
And just think what you’ll save on all those extended warranties.
