2012 reviewed by Mark Kermode

firstly I wanted to smell any idea that I am somehow sniffy about or above disaster movies as such I really like Independence Day I think de Deus is still the original is great we were talking about disaster movies on terrible and pet world in peril movies last night I made a documentary about the towering inferno on the Poseidon Adventure I think Owen Allen was a real genuine cinema genius I don't have anything against the disaster movie genre when done properly what I have is a problem with films that are plain and simple bad now in the case of 2012 it is no surprise to say that it is plain and simple bad but just as a bit of a setup the story is the world is going to hell in a handcart because the center of the world is heating up because of some solar flares and that means that the molten core is going to change and you're going to get crust movement so the putt everything's going to think oaked is a clip I'll explain it the temperature of the subterranean crust that is the cement that holds our land mass in place is increasing at a rapid rate much faster than anticipated as a result we've observed extreme polar instability the magnetic fields have decreased by more than 80 percent in the last 48 hours how much time do we have dr. Helmsley two maybe three days if we're lucky how can you speak about luck in such a situation apologies mr. prime minister I I meant no disrespect I'm afraid the longer we wait the more luck plays his part how much no good I know but you can see it was better already you get this edge no it's an American movie with the American worldview is that there is America and then there's have been a bunch of countries in which people people talk with funny accents like this and and there was one moment in it in which they're talking about because the story is go world is going to come to an end Oh blimey what are we going to do it turns out that some ships are being built that will save the remnants of humanity I'm not giving away too much of the plot because this is all in the trailer and the question then about who is going to get on the ships that are going to save humanity and there is one bit MIT in which it turns out that the American leader is going to going to go down with the ship he's going to go down go down with you earth the ships going to go down there's oh no no no he's going to go down with the earth and somebody says and we've already seen the Queen scuttling onto one of the ships but somebody says oh yes in the arc our queen yes but the Italian Prime Minister is apparently staying hey what so you know they are the two great posit we are with we are going down with the earth you know America and the Italian Prime Minister which sounds unlikely meanwhile the Brits are in the shape I am the queue is running as fast as you can to get onto it okay now the problems with the film are many fold we start with the fact that that running time nothing needs to be the best part of two hours 40 minutes long and blimey Charlie do we feel every minute those two hours 40 mins the whole idea of the Earth's core is melting down incidentally that plot is Nick from Dalek invasion of 2150 AD in which the Daleks come down to earth heat up the Earth's core in order to mine out the center of it so they can turn the earth into a spaceship so all this stuff about all the Mayans predicted it the Mayans who incidentally get blamed for everything nowadays and ever since Mel Gibson prove that it's basically possible to make a successful movie vaguely leaning toward the Mayan sense relative of everything's mine everything other Minds predicted it's all 2012 coming I have a theory color of Nostradamus oh yeah you predicted everything yeah exactly oh you know the Bermuda Triangle that'll do that or you know whatever it is it's just it's just the get-out-of-jail-free ticket as far as the 2012 thing is concerned let me say simply the reason the movie is called 2012 is this you release the original version of it this version in 2009 it comes out on DVD in 2010 it goes onto television in 2011 and come 2012 you released the director's cut on DVD so it's a way of Maxima it's nothing nothing's really Olympics know cuz everything the Olympics don't get mentioned either um it's it's basically it's it's it's like looking at an accountancy sheet okay the movie the plot of the movie nothing to do with Earth's call tell me oh nothing to be global under any of that it's an accounting thing okay we are going to spend two hundred and fifty million dollars and we need to recoup that and in order for the money to be made back really the movies got to turn something like five hundred million dollars and you look at you know something like Titanic which was like 1.8 billion over the course the earth and you look the other way Waterworld that cost around two hundred million only took 250 million which because you know by the multiplication you have to get two and a half times what the movie cost so we figure it over for you so it's like the plot of the film is essentially the balance sheet it's like an accountant wrote the plot an accountant did the sums get out the interest and said pull it 2012 if the budget was less it probably been 2011 because we would've been able to recoup the money earlier that's the first point the second point is that quite apart from the baggy stuff at the beginning which is incredibly you know long and doing all the setup and you know a gay go and get on just get on with the stuff happening um this cheese hurry up just hurry up and destroy the world okay what you get is this it almost farcical checklist of all the things that you've seen before in disasters I started to list them down is it so quite a part from the fact that obviously all disaster movies owes something to the sessile B DeMille you know biblical epics in which bad stuff happens and then there's a flood or bad stuff happens in there's a rain of fire Sodom and Gomorrah all that sort of stuff happens right so that's where that's the template but okay in 2012 we have the tidal wave which comes from deep impact and a bunch of other films we have the ocean liner turning over which is the Poseidon Adventure we have the fiery buildings falling down which is towering inferno and obviously seem to be post 9/11 which incidentally the BBFC mentioned in their report we have the cracks in the pavement appearing and the cars falling down in the people falling down to them which is earthquake which is the Charlton Heston movie we've got oh well we've got the black president it because that obviously now happened since deep impact that is that the rule of did that's how that has to work we've got the relationship getting sorted out this is the most important thing the relationship getting sorted out because we are there's also the dog getting out of the fiery Inferno which I think is from volcano but is the rule of disaster movies you can't kill the dog okay you can't kill you what yet exactly cuz you'll alienate the audience but at the center of it you have and see whether you could figure this out okay you know the way disaster movies work is they set up all these characters all these characters have character traits they have stuff to do right the disaster comes which is some great big cataclysmic event but in fact what we meant to be focused on is the individual character arc to the people that we showed it so at the beginning of the film okay John Cusack he is a failed author who has a failed marriage who doesn't spend enough time with his kids okay now also in this drama there is a sort of Russian oligarch who has loads and loads of money and has bought himself a place on one of the shipping he's very unpleasant he has two children who are very unpleasant but they and then we have a sort of flibbertigibbet type woman who has met one of the other characters through plastic surgery but but is treated very badly by the rushing at now just see if on the basis of that you can do the plot maths on how this works out get world is ending what happens to all those characters do you think oh it should I let you do it what I think Apple to go do you think that during the arc of the movie John Cusack will become a successful author who saves his marriage and spends more time with his children well you don't have time to write a book I if the way you don't have to write a new book the book the euro already that was unsuccessful might turn out to be strangely prophetic oh yes a failed to vote for bail yeah exactly failed book well is also about the way in which humanity you can look after itself because there's a message in all this even when the mountains are falling and the seas are rising human beings I'm turned to Carl Sagan is there is i am i standing on windswept Scott human beings yes it's the labor vigil look out her match will be on the boat that's right yes get out I'm the queen and I'm bringing my cookies so okay could that possibly do you think there's any possibility that they really badly behaved Russian oligarch whose music is going to come to a sticky end do you think there's any pot what do you think what you think I happened to the kids the kids are bad but they're kids what do you think they'll get after by the same rule as the doc now and it was like at one point I thought you know he's going to do he's going to be subversive and he's going to kill the wrong people with any good OGG then you got yes exactly gonna kill Daisy and the wrong people are going to survive but it is like like that so the plot is an accountancy sheet the character arcs I like somebody where you got that yeah you got that character you got that he's got to do that hang on he's got to map that fun yeah how long are we into this yet - as fine okay make the book successful do the bit with the thing now third part one of the great joys of disaster movies in the past has been actually watching the stunt if you see Poseidon Adventure the urban Allen thing okay the scene inside Avenger when the boat turns over it was at that time the biggest single drop that a stuntman had ever done you know the guys hanging onto the table and he falls there he falls through the boat he lands in the chandelier because the whole thing website and Gary's up it comes down right and you go wow I saw the Poseidon Adventure four or five times at the ABC honest growth because the stunts you know incredible stunts right and towering inferno the bit when they were hanging on the you know on the bond the bosun's boy and and and you know you know that people have really orchestrated these things wrong even if it's model work it's good model work it now with CGI there's no skill involved at all you just go well I want a plane flying through a build as it collapses and what's it if can you do that yeah I'll just draw it okay there was a in that review of a terminator salivation in which Jeff Smith from Radio 1 had liked it he said it's incredible you don't care a helicopters crashing and a camera goes through the the helicopter yeah CGR nobody cares anybody can do that nowadays is he judging what can you think of I can think of a three-headed Hydra coming out of the back of a jet plane it does make any difference I'll just draw it I'll just do it so you don't get any of that thrill that you ever got in disaster movies of actually watching people do stunts actually watching things actually happen you don't get the sense that you did with Live and Let Die remember when the car goes up and jumps over the river in a real car really jumps over a real river okay it's a stunt driver okay it's a stunt car okay they've set it up doesn't make any difference you still went Wow look at that a real car really did this but with this the planets falling apart and the buildings are coming down and the airplanes going up just going here but you just drew that on the computer and I'm not very interested plus there is a basic rule which goes like this any cataclysmic disaster really genuinely cataclysmic disaster has after-effects that lasts longer than 17 days sorry that's just how it works okay you cannot get over cataclysmic disasters in very and you cannot do happier words all right then you know most of the world wiped out but blimey they're so mad without giving too much away no I'm not giving it because these end of the world movie end of the world movie you are paying to see an end of the world movie about the end of only with moderate threat made by somebody who saves the dog now you can figure out for yourself in that case what happens in 2012 you

Channel: kermodeandmayo

Views: 195,723

Keywords: Roland Emmerich, 2012, kermode, mayo, 5 live, cusack, disaster

Id: kqVCjRojuP8

Length: 10min 41sec (641 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2009