Oh 2012, what is it about you that makes me love you so? Why I am I so looking forward to seeing you when you’re unveiled this November 13th, while other big budget disaster movies I disdain and even despise?
One clue to this conundrum is found in the expression of John Cusack, as seen above in a frame grab from 2012′s big five minute clip rollout on Friday night. John realises he’s in a comedy.
Unlike films, (and I use that term loosely), such as Transformers 2, it’s clear from the five minute teaser that the director of 2012, Roland Emmerich, knows completely and utterly that the premise of the film, and the entire nature of making a huge budget disaster film based on said premise, (some cod understanding of Mayan prophecies filtered through a New Age focus group), is a fundamentally absurd project – so he goes with the absurdity – totally.
This contrasts with Michael Bay’s Transformer series which, even in its supposed light-hearted comedy moments, is papered over with a portentousness that it is completely incompatible with the sight of giant jive talking robots wrestling with each other on the Pyramids.
From the evidence of the clip* 2012 seems completely lacking in this tendency towards misplaced seriousness. Even in his earlier apocalypse pics like Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow the overall mood seems to be that of a parody of the Hollywood disaster genre.
The clip is so over the top – so outrageous in its envisioning of a limousine getaway from a sinking California that I’m minded to paraphrase from another pic that understands itself well: this may just be Emmerich’s masterpiece.
I can’t wait to see it.
- – -
* Don’t think it’s a comedy? Look at the frame grab above – who’s the guy on the left? It’s Thomas McCarthy, the writer and director of The Visitor. The writer and director of The Visitor? Yes, in 2012 the writer and director of The Visitor plays the part of Gordon, a screaming airplane pilot. Case closed.
13 responses so far.
1 StanleyRumm // Oct 3, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Emmerich is next to Bay in my “never again” list of directors. Life is too short. I agree he's not as bad as Bay, in that he continuously makes very enjoyable half movies at least. It's a pity he feels the need to take a 45 minute dump all over that first half time & again and insists the paying public watch it. It's like he's making Highlander and every Highlander sequel & TV series all in one. Because (as Mr. Cameron would have it) “more is better”.
Read my lips: N-E-V-E-R–A-G-A-I-N-!
2 Jett Loe // Oct 4, 2009 at 5:43 am
I hear what you're saying…and yet…and yet…I really am looking forward to seeing this pic – perhaps it's a Busby Berkeley Depression Era Thing – wanting to see spectacle – or it's the dream world, (or the real world of California economically collapsing), made flesh.
3 Jeff Draughon // Oct 4, 2009 at 9:36 am
Ugh. I'm with Stanley on this one. After 'Independence Day' and 'Godzilla', I swore off the Emmerich films forever. 'Godzilla' was such a comprehensive failure, neither smart nor fun, a non-stop assault on common sense, with no understanding of basic film grammar. As Ebert said, it was actually worse than the cheesy originals.
And none of his subsequent films look any better … although I did enjoy counting the anachronisms in the trailer for '10,000 B.C.'
I'm baffled at Mr. Loe's enthusiasm for this film. To paraphrase his own words: If '2012' was a cheap little B movie, perhaps I could enjoy it as campy self-aware fun. But it's not. Like all of the Emmerich films, it will be expensive and portentous, poorly shot, poorly cut, with an infantile script and extravagant disaster effects.
They will indulge in showing us the destruction of monuments of shared human value (like Christ the Redeemer in Rio) and then ask us to care about silly characters in airplanes dodging and weaving around collapsing buildings. Perhaps we'll see another close-call rescue of a beloved family dog.
My advice: perform some more auto-hypnosis before entering the cinema.
4 allisoni // Oct 4, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Oh well, we all gotta go sometime. This trailer is just silly, right down to the giant donut — a great Simpsons nod.
5 Jett Loe // Oct 4, 2009 at 3:13 pm
You're right of course Jeff – Godzilla and 10,000 BC were abominations – yet, yet there's something about 2012 that makes me want to love it…this post is my first attempt in trying to understand why that is.
6 c_johnson // Oct 4, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Well done!
It is the best comedy of the year – especially when you open another browser tab and play http://www.imeem.com/samurock/music/2viGSMhj/ya... while watching it! :)
7 John Muth // Oct 4, 2009 at 9:19 pm
I have to say, if Roland Emmerich is making a movie about an apocalyptic event (whether it's aliens, the environment or the Mayan calendar), I'm there to see it. If he's making a movie about a monster, historical events or anything else, count me out (Stargate is my one exception to this rule.).
So, in with that philosophy, I have to see this movie. Is there a director that has been able to destroy the complete major cities of the world, as many times as Emmerich? (And what's he trying to say with the giant JFK aircraft carrier about to crush the White House?)
Will it be a good movie, probably not. But, it's bound to be entertaining. But, I see Emmerich more as in the league of Stephen Sommers – who has a style and seems to succeed with mediocrity – rather than Michael Bay, who thrives on extremely well-made/beautiful looking films with little to no story.
But, I'm with Jett on this one.
8 Jett Loe // Oct 4, 2009 at 10:13 pm
You're right of course Jeff – Godzilla and 10,000 BC were abominations – yet, yet there's something about 2012 that makes me want to love it…this post is my first attempt in trying to understand why that is.
9 c_johnson // Oct 5, 2009 at 1:27 am
Well done!
It is the best comedy of the year – especially when you open another browser tab and play http://www.imeem.com/samurock/music/2viGSMhj/ya... while watching it! :)
10 John Muth // Oct 5, 2009 at 4:19 am
I have to say, if Roland Emmerich is making a movie about an apocalyptic event (whether it's aliens, the environment or the Mayan calendar), I'm there to see it. If he's making a movie about a monster, historical events or anything else, count me out (Stargate is my one exception to this rule.).
So, in with that philosophy, I have to see this movie. Is there a director that has been able to destroy the complete major cities of the world, as many times as Emmerich? (And what's he trying to say with the giant JFK aircraft carrier about to crush the White House?)
Will it be a good movie, probably not. But, it's bound to be entertaining. But, I see Emmerich more as in the league of Stephen Sommers – who has a style and seems to succeed with mediocrity – rather than Michael Bay, who thrives on extremely well-made/beautiful looking films with little to no story.
But, I'm with Jett on this one.
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