2012

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Action & Adventure

It my seem a little weird, but I'm a fan ofapocalypse-themed movies. It's not because I have this weird sadistic streak which wants to see everyone killed off, but rather I find myself fascinated by the struggle to save humanity, to protect our way of life, and how people would eventually start anew (although this last one isn't usually shown at all before the movie ends).

*SPOILERS AHEAD

Keeping up with all the hype surrounding the apocalyptic prediction of the Mayan calendar which puts 2012 as "the year" in which a great cataclysmic event would destroy the world as we know it, Columbia Pictures gives us the creatively titled "2012", a film built around the premise that a solar event of massive proportions would cause the Earth to erupt in chaos.

For this review, I won't go into charcters and their development since these seem to be of little consequence in a story as grand as this, so forgive me. :P Besides, when I sat down and thought about it, the story would have gone this way anyways.

The concept is intriguing, if not somewhat silly. A huge solar flare is released from the sun's surface. Normally, solar flares would throw a harmless amount of subatomic particles like neutrinos our way. Since the solar flare in question is said to be massive, they are numerous enough to cause a physical reaction. In this case, they are heating up the Earth's core! THis is where it starts to make sense.. With the core heating up, the layers beneath the crust heat up as well, becoming more fluid and thereby destabilizing the crust. This results in massive seismic activity around the globe, giving rise to super-volcanoes, causing numerous powerful earthquakes, and effectively fissuring the Earth like a clay pot on a really-really hot day. :P The fun dosen't stop there, as plate tectonics also involve the oceans, triggering MASSIVE tidal waves that swallows up continents whole. Another interesting take on the whole thing was the shifting of the earth's magnetic fields, causing the south pole to be located in.. Wisconsin? :P

Upon recieving this alarming news of what was to come, the nations of the world begin a top secret project to save humankind (or at least a small portion of it) before its too late. A select number of individuals are taken into these giant "arks", which unfortunately were not spaceships as I previously thought (boo!). These arks would enable the last vestiges of humanity who are safely aboard to ride out the worldwide tidal waves when they hit. Nestled deep in the Himalayas, the arks would be relatively safe from the crust going loco and would only have to contend with the massive amounts of water coming afterwards. Oh, did I mention that they would be taking in animals too? Coz you can't have an Ark without animals, you dig? :P

The selection of people who would come aboard and save their asses was pretty obvious. The would get the best and the brightest that humanity would have to offer, to ensure that the best genes would survive (?). Obviously, the ultra-rich would be welcome aboard as well, after paying a hefty sum (1 million Euros/pax if I remember the movie right). I admire the realism of the movie in this regard. I had a fleeting thought that a lottery would have been a much fairer way to determine who lives and dies, but announcing a lottery would be tantamount to dooming the entire race. Going public abould the impending disaster with the dire news that there are only very limited seats available for survival would cause widespread panic, massive unrest and worldwide anarchy since humans would naturally put their own survival first. Harsh words indeed, but if the riots did happen and conflicts did escalate, nobody might make it to the arks alive.. or maybe a few douchebags who were able to forcibly take control and save their asses. Makes you wonder what kind of good post-apocalyptic society would spring forth from that, huh?

Things go a bit awry when the process of the core heating up goes faster than expected. The call for evacuation is sent out and the "chosen ones" make a mad scamble towards the mountains. The people are loaded into the ships, just as the tidal waves come forth over the FREAKIN' HIMALAYAS! After surviving the initial impact (which the arks were supposedly built to withstand), I would assume that they went about aimlessly while waiting for the waters to go down. Finally, after a couple of months, they are able to unseal the hatches as they set sail to repopulate the Earth with Africa as their starting point as the entire African continent had risen thousands of feet since the disaster and was presumed to be out of the water already.

Like I said, it definitely woul have been interesting how they would reestablish society and make a new beginning, but sadly, it's just a movie, a disaster movie at that. The happy ending provided, and whatever happens next is often left up to your own imagination.

4 1/2 out of 5 since the suspense scenes really kept me on my toes and the disaster they showed was nothing like I've ever seen before. I mean, I've seen "worse" planet-busting situations, but there wasn't really anything exciting going on when Alderaan was destroyed by the Death Star. :P