2012 - Blu-ray Review

'for his final trip down lets-annihilate-everything-on-the-planet lane, you would have thought Emmerich might have attempted to go out with a semi-original bang but in fact, the opposite is true'

Love him or hate him, when it comes to blowing the world up, Roland Emmerich is 'the man'. All things considered 2012 is the fourth time he's done it and whilst his previous efforts (Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow) were never going to trouble the major Oscars' categories, you can't deny they carried with them a certain level of summer blockbuster charm and an awareness of what was expected.

Just before Emmerich finished 2012, he sat down with USA Today to take stock of where he was and promised that this would be his final disaster film. Sniffy critics around the world sighed a huge sigh of relief. Emmerich would only be subjecting us to one more inglorious attempt at watching something destroy various famous landmarks and structures across the globe. The method of destruction this time? The world is destroying itself and natural disasters have become de facto in various countries spanning the continents... hold on... isn't that the plot of The Day After Tomorrow? Why yes, yes it is. Say helloooo Mr. Recycled Screenplay!

Which is all, of course, a long-winded and conceited way of saying: we've seen all this before. For his final trip down lets-annihilate-everything-on-the-planet lane, you would have thought Emmerich might have attempted to go out with a semi-original bang but in fact, the opposite is true. This is TDAT writ large but still writ, more of less, verbatim. There's interest and investment for us in what the government (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oliver Platt, Danny Glover) are doing about it all, there's the regular family trying to survive the mess (John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Thomas McCarthy, Liam James, Morgan Lily) and there's the comedy-value crazy person who warned us all about this years ago (Woody Harrelson - who else nowadays can star in a glorified, off-the-wall cameo). There's basically everything we saw in TDAT but more so and as is so often the case, when Hollywood try to do more, they end up doing less.

So yes, there is some interest in bad-Dad-trying-to-make-good Cusack but not nearly as much as there was in the same character (Dennis Quaid's Jack Hall) in TDAT. Yes there's some interest in the morals of governance through Ejiofor and Platt but again, not nearly as much as there was in the little-seen vice-president in TDAT. There's even the tragic-side-scientist-who-discovered-the-whole-thing, but again, 2012 can only muster up Jimi Mistry where TDAT had Ian Holm.

On every level, when compared to his previous film, 2012 comes up short for Emerich. There are the expected awe-inspiring sections of action adventure with the initial plane escape from the crumbling West Coast in particular both thrilling and ludicrously exiting but without the emotional investment in the characters the whole thing just doesn't work as well. By the time we end up in some sort of pseudo-science fiction finale where one character apparently destined to survive leaves us without even a moments notice, boredom was starting to set in and when a regulation but completely unwarranted romance was trotted out boredom had been left by the wayside in favour of apathy.

Even for genre fans (are there any?) this is lightweight at best and if you're missing any of the previous three films from your tick list then a rental for them will go down a lot smoother than spending two hours plus in the company of 2012 which is a tired mess of character cliches and recycled moments from films that have done this sort of thing to a much higher level.

Look further...

'Rolland Emmerich's latest disaster movie is just that' - Cinema Du Meep, 1 and a 1/2 out of 4