While 2012 came out in theatres way back in November, it just arrived on DVD this Tuesday and that made me think it was the perfect time to revisit it. And by revisit, I mean offer commentary on. And my commentary begins like this “Fuck you, 2012, fuck you very much.”
Oh, Spoiler Warnings, by the by.
And occasional profanity, if you couldn’t guess.
"Do...do we really have to do this?
Yes, John, yes we do.
So the intro probably seems a little harsh. Believe me, I’d prefer not to be. I love John Cusack more than you’d expect a man to and would estimate him to be the individual most responsible for the fact that I’m a married man these days—excepting my wife Janelle and I, of course. The reason for that is a story for another day, but just know I am a man who loves him some Cusack. Alas, I still have to heap scorn upon this film.
But please know that it has nothing to do with the tropes of the genre. Yes, it is big and dumb. Indeed, it reduces global catastrophe to pretty but ultimately entirely unaffecting scenes of destruction. Of course, it features a cast of actors slumming it far below their talent level (Hellooooooooooooo Woody Harrelson, Oliver Platt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, etc). And sure, as my friend Joe succinctly put it, it is a movie where everything that will happen (the world WILL end, the world WILL flood and no land will be left untouched) does, but, then in the third act, it turns out, not really. (Spoiler alerts, by the way) If anyone watches a Roland Emmerich and does not expect such things clearly has never been to a movie theatre in America since 1992.
Hell, not even its depiction of the world community—one that would no doubt make my Diversity professor vomit in rage—nor its bizarre decision that the world ending is not spectacle enough without Platt pulling a Billy Zane in Titantic villainous turn.
(To interrupt here, am I the only who feels that the farther I get away from Titanic, the less I like the film, but the more I LOVE Billy Zane in it? At this point, he’s my second favorite part of it, behind that scene where that poor fellow cracks his skull on the boat propeller after falling off the deck. And don’t pretend like you don’t know the scene I am referencing.)
No, my disgust for this movie has nothing to do with any of these things. My problem is the movie’s hamfisted morality regarding the “family unit.” The lengths this movie goes to protect and promote the ideal American family is galling, particularly to a chap like me who came from a familial environment that this 2012 appears so hellbent on eliminating.
Consider the two of the step parents in the picture. One is Gordon Silberman (Thomas McCarthy), the new husband of Kate Curtis (Amanda Peet), the ex-wife of Jackson Curtis (John Cusack). While Jackson is presented as an artist who writer underappreciated but apparently hopeful stories of what mankind can accomplish when their backs are against the wall, Gordon is a California plastic surgeon (widely accepted as the most loathsome of doctors). Jackson works another job as a limo driver to ensure he can still produce his art. Gordon takes pilot lessons in his spare time. Despite all of this, Gordon actually seems to be a pretty decent guy who genuinely cares for Kate and Jackson’s children.
Clearly this man must die.
And so he does.
(Did I mention spoiler warnings?)
He gets crushed by a giant set of gears. That’s right, he survives the end of the world, only to killed on a ship that should ensure his safety until the world resets itself. Doubly insulting!
Kate mourns him appropriately by almost immediately placing her tongue in her ex’s mouth. Triple insult combo hit! Later we find that Kate and Jackson are together again and the family is whole once more and happy despite the world almost ending and all that, thus reinforcing the idea that a.) the nuclear family is the “natural” state of things and b.) step parents are always just poor substitutes for the real thing. No effort is made to honor Gordon in any way by anyone.
The other step parent, Tamara (Beatrice Rosen) is not actually a step mother, but she’s close enough. She is the girlfriend of a Russian mogul, Yuri Karpov (Zlatko Buric), with two identical twin sons. She is a Paris Hilton type, complete with tiny dog, impractically revealing clothes, and seemingly vapid attitude, much younger than her boyfriend and ostensibly responsible for the dissolution of his marriage to a woman the film implies he is still in love with (continuing that whole step parents are not as good as the real thing motif). In a particularly nice twist later, she is further reduced when it is revealed that she has been surgically enhanced by, you guessed it, Dr. Gordon Silberman. Also she was cheating on this mogul with his valet/bodyguard. So, yeah…not great.
Yet, despite all this, she portrayed as a decent human being who has a good heart and a good head on her shoulders.
Clearly she must die.
And so she does.
(SPOILERS!!!!!!!)
In a galling sequence that defies physics, she is drowned after saving Kate and Jackson’s daughter. How does it defy physics? Well, check it out in this drawing.
Ladies and Gentlemen...ART!
In it, what you see is three chambers. In the chamber on the left, we have the Curtis’s daughter, in the middle is Tamara, and on the left are the Curtis’s and their son. Due to a malfunction, a door is open and water is rushing in from the left side. To stop the boat from sinking, three walls go up, creating the chambers and isolating the characters from one another. Water continues to rush in from the left. The water level rises and rises. Logically, the people on the left should be the first at risk for drowning. After all the water reaches them first, right? Or, if you argue that it will go into the other two chambers, despite the doors, at a quick enough rate to keep the left chamber not too full with water, the right one should fill first as it is the end of the line and things will back up from there. Yet, only one chamber fills fully…the one containing Tamara. Thus, the almost step mom is dead. Yay for morals reinforcing water!
(Spoilers ahoy!)
To really perfect things though, to bring the perfect family to fruition, you still have the issue of the selfish mogul. Thankfully, he dies in a noble sacrifice for his boys leaving the deck clear for, and I kid you not here, the new family until of Jackson, Kate, their two children, the Russian twins (who are now, oddly enough, quite humble and pleasant, despite being utter jerks when we first see them), and the dog. So the Curtis’s are not just a great family, they are a great, kind family that adopts Russian orphans and turns them from spoiled brats to good kids! FIESTA FOREVER!
Oh, and one more thing. Two attractive Black characters survive the floods. They, I believe, are the only Black characters we see, post “end of the world but not really” and they certainly are the only ones with speaking lines. They end up in a relationship together. Interesting. I’m not saying—okay, I am. That feel bit lazy/racist to anyone else?
So, in conclusion, fuck you 2012. Fuck you very much.
"I'm sorry I don't make the best choices!!!! Please go see Hot Tub Time Machine!"
Oh, I can’t stay mad at you John…
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You, sir, do not know a fine film when you see one.
Personally, I found the decision to prepare for disasters by building arks in the Himalayas to be pure genius. I thought they were building spaceships. Boy, was my face red when they turned out to be arks!
And then to put them in the Himalayas! They’re boats! And the Himalayas are mountains! I mean, the ocean is down there, and the arks were way up over here!
Of course, when the tsunamis hit the Himalayas were the only safe place. Which is a good lesson, I think. In times of global geologic instability, the only safe place to be is a massively unstable mountain range.
We should probably be building some arks up there right now just to be safe.
It is smart…except for the fact that they wouldn’t have even had to build the boats if everyone just went to Africa and hung out since the continent NEVER flooded.