I should have listened to Dr Kermode

If I was ever deluded enough to think I could become a contestant on 'Mastermind', one of my most likely choices for specialist subject would be "The End Of Civilization As We Know It, as depicted in popular works of fiction".

I've been keen on this type of story ever since I first read a tattered paperback copy of "The Day of The Triffids" that I found in the loft when I was about ten years old. It made me realize that there was a lot about my cosy life that I took for granted and while it was unlikely that we were in imminent danger of being over-run by carnivorous vegetables, "things could go wrong".
Since then, my world has been destroyed many times over, by various agencies. Alien invasion, polar ice-caps melting, global virus pandemic, asteroid impact and nuclear apocalypse. Anything that could go wrong, has gone wrong. And it's all been jolly entertaining too.

...until we get to "2012", which we watched the other night.

"2012" is a film from Roland Emmerich which must have sounded like a wonderful idea when they pitched it.
"Well it's about the end of the world, y'see. The earth's core goes wrong and there's like, earthquakes all over and cities slide into the sea and skyscrapers fall down and trains explode and the US President is very brave (and the Queen of England isn't) and more stuff blows up and planes fly through collapsing office buildings and then some guy saves his family from falling down a crack in the earth and ocean going liners capsize and even more stuff explodes and there's all these tidal waves and...and.....and.... more shit blows up. Oh and did I mention the President being brave?..."

This is a film with everything falling down and blowing up and drowning and burning that somehow manages to be dull. How on earth have they done that?
It is a movie that is so packed with CGI special effects that there's no space for anything else.

Is there a plot? Well, yes there is, but it's barely more than a flimsy thread from which hang an endless sequence of CGI set-pieces.
Are the characters believable? No. The actors in this film are little more than cyphers. Let's see what we've got. Heroic, but estranged father? Check! Russian crime lord? Check! Prostitute with a heart of gold? Check! Doomed scientists who weren't listened to when they warned us about what was going on? Check! Tibetan monks? Check! Plucky pet dog? Check!

Is it possible to care about anyone in the story? No. Once your single-parent family man has saved his children from the umpteenth computer generated and utterly unconvincing earthquake/tidal wave/exploding aircraft/collapsing shopping mall, you get a bit jaded. Even though the world is supposedly falling to bits, it's difficult to work up any sympathy for characters who are so obviously not in any real peril.
I felt that there should have been a disclaimer, similar to that of The American Humane Association at the end of the film , stating "No stunt persons were endangered during the making of this motion picture."
When a CGI aircraft flies through a collapsing CGI building in "2012", absolutely nobody is going to get hurt. When stunt pilot, Frank Tallman flew a twin engined Beechcraft 18 through a roadside advertising billboard in the film "It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world", there was every chance that he was going to get injured. It's a genuinely breathtaking and audacious piece of work.

To sum up. "2012" is a disaster movie and yet the level of disappointment that such an apparently thrilling spectacle actually delivers is well summed up in the BBFC consumer advice : "Contains moderate threat and one use of strong language".
It's supposed to be the end of the world, for crying out loud. I'd expect something more than "moderate threat".

When Mark Kermode reviewed this film, he went into full rant mode about how poor this film is.
I should have listened...

Frank Tallman (1919 - 1978)

The clip, showing this astonishing bit of flying is no longer available through YouTube, as MGM have blocked it.