All About Visuals

Jackson Curtis: No matter what happens, we'll all stay together.

As scientists begin to fear the end of the world, one man tries to keep his family safe from disaster. Jackson Curtis (Cusack) begins to listen to the wild theories of Charlie Frost (Harrelson) and he realizes that everything Charlie speaks about on his radio program is coming true. Also at the same moment Dr. Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor) is the geologist who begins to realize that the end of the world may be happening faster then he originally predicted. Now with the impending disaster about to strike it is a battle of survival and people are willing to do all that it takes to survive.

Adrian Helmsley: The moment we stop fighting for each other, that's the moment we lose our humanity

From the way I saw the commercials they labelled this as a John Cusack film but he was not able to pull off the level of performance I have seen from him in the past. His lines were monotone and sound like the same record scratching to look for the next good thing to play. Cusack failed to grip during the emotional family moments, the tender moments where he was supposed to make it seem to his children like everything was going to be ok. Perhaps it felt this way because these films are way to predictable as far as knowing what to expect next. Cusack perhaps could not deliver the emotional fervor because we knew that the next scene would feature the same sort of idea.

I however was pleasantly surprised at the performance of Chiwetel Ejifor, he played Adrian on a human level, he was not racing against an ash cloud or massive tsunamis to save his children, but he was the man who had to keep this catastrophe a secret and watch as the people developed a sense of hysteria and a will to do what it took to survive. He has the right idea about restarting humanity but just like every other redundant disaster flick there was one man who felt he had authority and whatever he said is what happened. All though through the commonplace of events one could understand that Adrian was in fact human and was trying to keep humanity alive and alienating people because of status and class was not the way to go about doing it.

After looking into the surprised reaction and sheer terror of these characters and deciding whether or not the circumstance that took place are believable or not one must then do a little bit of research to discover whether or not the science beyond 2012 is actually realistic. The Earth Crust displacement is a real theory. If you want to read more about it check out this website here www.skrause.org/writing/papers/hapgood_and_ecd.shtml. There is evidence gathered by Professor Charles Hapgood on this theory but he could not narrow it down and say that it would be taking place in the year 2012. The theory states the earth is supposed to move on its axis which in the movie caused the fault lines to create massive mid ocean tsunamis which had enough force to destroy land for miles. My advice to anyone who likes science is to watch the film and then look into the theories yourselves, because I don’t know all that much and so I decided to link to a page that has more sources then I can possibly give you.

Now if you want a film where you watch the devastation of mankind where you can predict the outcome from mile away or you are looking for action that is way beyond anything I hope to ever see in my lifetime then 2012 is your film, it is explosive with CGI and the destruction of the cities is rather action packed. Take note Governments and build these “arks” and everyone begin the trek to China in early 2012 because The date of December 21st may not be when the world as we know it comes to end. If you want to believe in the 2012 theory that is.

Take away the over the top visuals and there is really no reason to watch these films, all these big name actors hired to play filler roles to help build the realism was waste of budget money. My advice, rent this film for a 3 hour filler gap of time, if you are completely and utterly bored beyond belief then take a 10-20 minute walk and rent this from your local store, oh and turn on the surround sound if you have it, other than that I say skip this one entirely.

Sources
www.skrause.org/writing/papers/hapgood_and_ecd.shtml.


5/10