11-19-09 Movie Review: 2012

Four noncommercial movies coming up between now and next Wednesday night. The first is the Tallgrass Third Thursday movie for November, called Nollywood Babylon, about the Nigerian movie industry, one of the biggest in the world, and it's 7 p.m. tonight in the Rhatigan Student Center at WSU; call 316-650-2391. At the same moment, 7 tonight, the Orpheum will show the only version of the Dickens' A Christmas Carol to compare with the immortal Alistair Sim version, the George C. Scott version, from 1984: 7 tonight, the Orpheum. Tomorrow, Wichita Film Festivals shows my second most favorite movie, right after Citizen Kane; Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai shows at 7:30 in the Murdock Theatre, 536 North Broadway, Friday. And Sunday, the Blank Page gallery shows Hold Fast, some kind of a documentary about a bunch of anarchists sailing a boat from Montreal to the Caribbean, to what purpose I do not know, at 7:30.

And commercially, we will definitely still have a chance to see whole continents endangered and whole cities destroyed in 2012, directed by Roland Emmerich, who makes Cecil B. Demille look like Roger Corman and even James Cameron look thrifty in terms of special effects.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is the scientist who sees big trouble coming and tries to get President Danny Glover to take action, with the aid of Oliver Platt, who is somehow supposed to be some kind of a villain because he wants to save what can be saved; Woody Harrelson glories in the disaster, while John Cusack knows only that he must save his family, including wife Amanda Peet, while Glover's daughter Thandie Newton and a whole bunch of others are pretty much just along for the the ride. There's a little domestic drama involving Cusack's family and occasional not very effective satire involving political obstacles, but in general, what little plot there is here just to put a little space between the special effects, so we won't just get exhausted and quit reacting to them, which pretty much happens anyway before two and a half hours is over.

Unless I missed something, and I suspect that I dozed, the main plot gets a little confused: Ejiofor's last decision seemed to me either fatally sentimental or just totally inconsistent with one of the main premises concerning the escape system. And I certainly do not claim to know enough about neutrinos, the core of the earth, and the shifting of the tectonic plates to comment on the credibility of the science as the base of the story. 2012 probably makes as much scientific sense as disaster movies usually do; that's not a lofty standard to live up to.

There is little point in looking at the acting of the roles, which do represent a variety of basic types which can be suggested mostly by physical casting; we never identify with the characters beyond what we feel about their situations. And when we have to resort to little dogs for emotional effect, we know that desperation is playing its part.

But what matters are the special effects, and they are stupendous and convincing right up to the end. If you haven't seen the previews by now, you must not be a movie fan at all, and all I can say is that the whole movie lives up to the previews. Even if it's all computer graphics, the accomplishment is remarkable; this is one you want to see on the biggest screen you can manage. The driving and the flying even outdo the customary reckless driving Hollywood is more devoted to than it is to any other thing, and the achievements of John Cusack and the small-plane pilot continue the usual theme that folks like you and me are real heroes in any extreme situation. You know what to expect in a movie of the 2012 type, and 2012 delivers like no other I can recall.

I still prefer movies about people, but for what it is, 2012 is five stars of a possible four.