2012: A disaster of a disaster

The fact is, 2012 is a pretty silly movie, even if you can ignore the whole Aztec calendar nonsense. As I sat here puzzling over the many aspects of the movie that made me snigger derisively, it finally hit me what's really wrong with this movie: It's pure formula. There's not a shred of originality in it.

What's more, I'm certain this is a formula from the 1980s, a screenplay that sat on the shelves for better than three decades, just waiting for someone to dust it off and adapt it for the 21st century big screen.

Luckily, I didn't watch it on the big screen; I borrowed the DVD from a neighbor and watched it on a 21-inch HDTV, which, honestly, is just what it deserves.

Hollywood likes formulas. After all, the primary objective of the vast majority of movies is to make a buck off the movie-going masses. This film contains all of the stock elements from movies that have been commercial successes in the past--and, yes, I do mean the 1980s. Spielberg’s films provided Hollywood—and moviegoers—with all the stock elements necessary for a commercial success. Everyone’s been building on the foundation he built—repeatedly.

The movie opens with a crisis, wasting little time before letting us all know that the world is going to end. Soon. Because bad things are happening with the sun, like giant solar flares and mutating neutrino particles--all having very bad effects on the Earth.

Cut to the average Joe who has to deal with the extraordinary turn of events. The man's family, as per the formula, is divorced, and one of his children remains bitter about it. He's published but not-so-successful writer Jackson Curtis (played by John Cusack), and he's meeting his children to go on a little camping trip. And, naturally, the mother has a new boyfriend who just happens to be something of a shallow, self-centered jerk. Or so it seems.

From the concerned scientists to the crazy hermit in the woods running his own pirate radio station, every character is stock from a dusty rolodex in some film company back office.

What really tipped me off to this being a formula from the 1980s was when the scene switched to a boxing match featuring a Russian fighter. Boxing? Seriously? The only purpose of the scene was to introduce the wealthy Russian for whom the main character chauffeurs. But boxing? Boxing has been dead in Hollywood and in the public mind since mixed martial arts came along.

The only reason I could think of to explain how a scene like that could possibly have landed in a film released in 2009 was that this screenplay has been written since 1980-something. You see, my theory is simply this: When the business about 2012 entered the public consciousness, someone in Hollywood was wise enough to realize this had to be turned into a box office cash cow to capitalize on our love of disaster movies. But they needed to act fast because they didn't have much time to get it done. It had to get done before December 22, 2012, after all, because after that date comes and goes, the film will become irrelevant.

Easy solution: Oh, hey, I've got this screenplay filed away somewhere that's just been waiting to be retrofitted for, well, something, anything. It's got all of the right elements: cute kids, a lovable loser, a pretty ex-wife with a jerky boyfriend, a cool guy for president whom everyone loves as a father figure, humor, tender emotional moments ...

All we need to do is slap on some great CGI and voila! instant disaster flick with all the right elements. It’s the special effects that make movies these days anyway, right?

From there we follow lovable loser Curtis on his quest to save his family from imminent doom.

There's a lot of humor in the film, and I honestly don't know how much of it is intentional. Many of the scenes depicting spectacular destruction are hilarious for going completely over the top.

Then there are the intentionally funny moments. The very choice of casting Woody Harrelson as the crazy guy in Yellowstone lets you know just how seriously this movie takes itself. At one point someone in Tibet is trying to convince his mother that a disaster is imminent and that they must prepare for it. The chicken she's about to slaughter for a meal looks up on cue with seeming surprise as the son mentions the great flood.

I had long since decided that if at any point the film showed a flying cow, it would become one of my favorite comedies.

The only problem is, these lighthearted scenes are interspersed with solemn tender moments intended to evoke strong emotions. It's hard to take seriously the father's phone call to his son in Japan after we've just seen a chicken showing surprise at the news of a coming cataclysm.

So, exactly what did writer-director Roland Emmerich intend for this movie to be? A rollercoaster action/disaster flick with mind-boggling special effects or a campy comedy that pokes fun at the idea that the world will end in 2012?

I'm sure many people headed out to theaters thinking they'd be treated to a serious disaster film. Most were likely more than a little underwhelmed by what they got. Still, it's actually somewhat enjoyable in the way that many bad movies are. I would have liked this movie a lot more if Emmerich hadn't tried so hard to inject some seriousness into it. Even the subject matter isn't serious, so why not just make the whole thing a campy comedy? It comes across as more of a poor man's Armageddon—which, frankly, was just as silly, but had the big-name stars and charisma to get away with it.

The film had an estimated budget of $200 million and it grossed about $167 million at the box office. Figuring in whatever merchandising there is and the video sales and rentals, it stands to reason that this will be considered a modest success.

In the end, it will reinforce the idea that formulas still work. Give the audience a silly plot, inject the lovable loser and his family, and you've got the foundation for a successful film.

But if you paid movie theater prices for this one, I think Emmerich and Sony owe you an apology.