Kev reviews: 2012: Doomsday.
OK, I love disaster movies. When I saw the first trailers for 2012 I was really excited! The whole world was tearing itself apart! Sure, the film was daft and silly but to hell with that, a guy drives a car through a collapsing building! Awesome!
Well, I was in my local budget DVD store the other day when I stumbled across this: 2012: Doomsday. And I knew I was on to a winner as an uncredited quote on the cover read:
- Quote :
- ”A modern Christian epic in the tradition of The Omega Code.”
While the back of the box makes reference to Left Behind.
Oh, yeah... This’ll be good. A Christian propaganda cash-in on a big-budget apocalypse film.
[warning: The film I’m reviewing brings up debates around Christianity and belief. Some of the related snarks may carry overtones of the religious beliefs of the snarker]
So, I hit play, and off we go:
Dramatic orchestra music accompanies us as we fly down a river in some rainforest-type location while accompanied by the credits. This goes on for fully three minutes, before we get another establishing shot of somewhere else... Great editing & timing guys...
OK, I’m nitpicking, but for some reason this waste of three minutes of epic build-up that adds nothing to the film just irks me. I think they were trying to recreate the opening sequence of Day After Tomorrow, where we fly over miles and miles of glaciers accompanied by the credits and music, but that shot then becomes the establishing shot of Dennis Quaid’s camp. Here, we’ve started in space looking at a planet, that a handy subtitle informs us is Earth (Thanks movie, needed that) before the three-min river trip before we bounce somewhere else, with nary a river in sight. It’s bad pacing, editing and spacing. Christ, I’ve written a paragraph, and we’re not even five mins in!
Subtitles inform us that we’re in Orizaba, Mexico. And that it is “36 hours before Doomsday”.
Apparently, an earthquake has opened up a new chamber in some archaeological dig, so the team charge off to their immaculate rental cars to go investigate.
Inside... Somewhere.... Generic T. Cave, I guess, no establishing shot... The team discover a golden disk with a golden crucifix depicting Christ.
*Sigh* Hokay...
Rocks fall, people die... and we have a title: 2012: Doomsday...
We’ve already had subtitles telling us that it is the year 2012, and that Doomsday is looming... You really need to spell this stuff out for me don’t you, movie?
We head to Balitmore, Maryland. Now it’s 28 hours before Doomsday. We then head to the US Geological Survey Centre. I don’t know why we’re in Maryland for this, because the noted offices for the USGS are in Reston, Virginia, Denver, Colorado, and Menlo Park, California. This info I got from their website... (With is pretty cool BTW.)
Sciency people are doing sciency things in the centre, like tapping on laptops, looking concerned, holding phones to their faces (but not saying anything), flipping through folders and pinching their chins.
I guess something important is happening... Oh, and I haven’t mentioned that the same repeating ‘epic’ orchestral music motifs from the credit sequence haven’t freaking stopped yet...
Finally, one of the scientist blokes speaks, and I’m gonna repeat this scene verbatim because this movie’s attempt at science is fucking hilarious!
- Quote :
- So here’s what we know. Seismic activity has increased exponentially over the last 24 hours and that increase is growing steadily.
Someone doesn’t know what ‘exponentially’ means...
- Quote :
- National weather centre is also reporting some very unique climate changes all over the world...
Someone also doesn’t know what ‘Climate’ means either... If it is happening fast enough to see it, then it’s
weather.[quote]and we have a theory that explains this activity... [quote]
Oh, this’ll be good.
- Quote :
- We believe the Earth’s rotation is slowing.
Wait... What did you say?
- Quote :
- We believe the Earth’s rotation is slowing.
I’m sorry, come again...
- Quote :
- We believe the Earth’s rotation is slowing.
Yeah, that’s what I thought you said...
OK, how?
- Quote :
- Due to the Solar System’s alignment with the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.
:blink:
:blink: :blink:
*Four Whisky and cokes*
*Deep breath*
Okay... Continue...
- Quote :
- But that’s impossible!
Fuck me! There is someone in the room with a grasp of science!
- Quote :
- Sir, NASA’s known about these alignments for decades
Other astronomers and astrologers have known about them since 450AD from the teachings of Philolaus, and that’s only the earliest Greek astronomer I can find, I’m sure there are others. I guess NASA is a little slow like that.
Not to mention that, considering we’re dealing with the Black Hole at the
centre of our galaxy, we are therefore PERMANANTLY aligned to it!
- Quote :
- We’ve run the calculations there’s no way that the gravitational force can significantly affect this planet.
Aside from the whole, ‘causing the rotation of the galaxy’ and all that...
The other guy looks confused for a while, and then says:
- Quote :
- I dunno what’s causing it, but I tell you by our calculations this theory is the only one that makes any sense.
So... The one theory you have is impossible, and yet it is the only one that makes any sense, because, you don’t know why...
Technobabble doesn’t work like that! You can’t just throw together some half-arsed
idea, pad it out with words like ’alignment’, ‘calculations’, ‘exponentially’ and ‘gravity’ and hope that people won’t notice that you’re full of shit!
The other scientists pinch their chins in contemplation of this and that’s it. Science lesson over. Thanks, USGS. You guys are awesome!
We then hop to Veracruz, Mexico. 27 hours before Doomsday.
We watch a young female jogger as she trundles through the town, some stalker dude snaps some pics of her, then strikes up a conversation. Sarah, for that is the girl’s name, is looking for a Doctor. She’s a missionary. Alex, the stalker dude, offers to help her.
There’s some sort of plague or something in the village... But we get no more info on that as we’re off to San Diego, California: 26 hours before Doomsday.
Some girl is drawing pictures of a crucifix floating over a stepped pyramid.
She’s a paramedic, and we hover over her as she helps the aftermath of a drive-by shooting. The fellow who is shot has a tattoo of the stepped pyramid & crucifix, and he resists all attempts for people to help him. To make the scene last longer, several shots and lines of dialogue are reused two to three times.
We then go to El Tajin, Mexico... you guessed it... 25 hours before Doomsday.
For heaven’s sake, movie, can we
please sit still long enough to get to know some of these characters?
Here we rejoin the archaeologists examining the golden crucifix.
- Quote :
- ”The computer estimates the carbon 14 to be dated between the years 300 and 600 AD”
“Well, what does that mean?”
Yeah.. this is the
special school of archaeology.
- Quote :
- This proves that the European Christians were here long before Columbus.
This is fucking stupid... First off, in the time period we’re talking about (300-600AD) European Christians is redundant. ALL Christians were European. And to even suggest that they (or anyone from Europe) could perform a trans-Atlantic crossing at the time is utterly ludicrous. Also, I’m informed, that Crosses bearing the image of Christ weren’t in use at the time. They didn’t turn up until 7th-8th century.
[I’ve got all this from here...
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Before I give the impression that I’m some sort of history buff.. I’m not. If you know better, then please correct me.]
But before the movie can linger on this scene any longer (Or give us the fucking NAMES of the characters we’ve just re-visited) we bounce back to Baltimore. 24 Hours before Doomsday. And we’re back with out scientards! Yay!
- Quote :
- ...and we’ve created a detailed model. Assuming that the rotation is moving towards a complete stop, I’ve input all the major fault areas and I’ve programmed the artificial intelligence to accurately move the earth’s tectonic plates. I’ve also downloaded the latest weather conditions and have assigned realistic pressure areas to each of the global zones.
Oh, bless you, movie, you’re trying so hard.
What we have then is another half-arsed attempt to re-create the whole ‘explaining the event’ sequence from Day After Tomorrow, complete with the dramatic pauses after each “This is X hours out” explanation, and cutaways to concerned, chin-pinching scientists.
Back to Veracruz, 23 hours.
Turns out the lead science guy is Sarah’s father. Because it is very likely this is confusing given the horde of characters the film throws at us: the dude spouting the technobabble is the dad of the missionary lass.
He tries to get her to evacuate Mexico. But rather than tell her of the impending flooding, as predicted by the artificaial intelligence, wether downloaded simulator, he just asks her to trust him for one and get on a plane. Why do people never point this shit out? If a friend of mine called me up and said:
“Kev, listen to me, you’ve got to get out of Southampton. Trust me.” I’d be confused and scared, and if I didn’t have a good relationship with my friend (as Sarah has with her Dad apparently) I’d be very un-inclined to do anything.
IF my friend were to say: “Look, I’ve got good cause to believe that there is a fucking big earthquake about to happen, that’ll cause a tidal wave and flood Southampton soon, so please get out of there.” I’d still be scared, but at least I’d be able to form a plan of action and I’d have a reason to trust him.
San Diego. 22 hours.
The paramedic girl and her partner go over the death of the guy. The partner says:
[quote]”It was his time”[quote]
I fucking hate people who say that. It wasn’t his time, he was perfectly healthy and he died because he refused attempts to help him, for no adequately explained reason. That could be categorised as suicide in my book.
- Quote :
- If someone has an illness or disease, you don’t just say:”It’s their time”
Says the girl. And I agree wholeheartedly. But... she continues
- Quote :
- We use our technology, our modern medicine to save them, to cure them... God does not save people.
Hang on... Who brought God up?
This is a really, really, painfully clumsy attempt at characterisation. The girl is supposed to be an atheist, and this movie is her journey to find out that God exists and blah, blah.
Now, I’m not about to rag on the film because of its Christian overtones. A film about an atheist discovering God can be a good story. And I’m not just saying that because I’m Christian. I’m one of the most liberal Christians you’re ever likely to meet, I’m saying it because this story ham-fistedly shoehorns this girl into the role. And with this, her use of the terms ‘technology’ and ‘modern medicine’ reek with the undertones of ‘worshipping false idols’.
Bullshit
- Quote :
- Guy: ”We could have saved that man today”
Girl: “If he would have listened to us we could have saved him, and you know that.”
Guy: “But he didn’t. He Didn’t. There’s a reason for everything, Susan,
FINALLY we know her fucking name!
- Quote :
- ...just because you can’t see it, or don’t believe it... Doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
We are supposed to read that the fellow who died knew of the impending apocalypse, and chose to die rather than face it. That is cowardly, suicidal bullshit, and I do not buy it, nor do I believe that God would.
I believe that life is a gift from God, as well as a gift from my parents, and I therefore owe it to them all to fucking LIVE!
I can’t promise that this will be the only ‘Kev believes such-and-such’ rant in this review. But I just hate it when films, books, music or whatever get so fucking preachy. I may owe my life to biology or some divine spark of life, but it is still my life, and it is for me to find my way within it. Give me examples of people who have undertaken spiritual journeys, sure, you can learn from that, and use it to build your own life, but don’t preach to me that Existence-A is bad and Existence-B is good, just because. That shit, I will not eat.
The fucking conversation isn’t over...
- Quote :
- Susan : “You see good people die every day. And you still believe in God?”
This is a fair question. It is one I’ve both asked and attempted to answer in my life. C.S. Lewis spoke about how God allows us to suffer to test our faith. We see little Johnny run over by a combine harvester, while Billy Arsehole gets rich and famous, and you still believe in God... That proves faith.
I can see Lewis’s point, but I’m not sure I agree. God does not, specifically, allow us to suffer, he allows us to do whatever the fuck we want, and with that we MAKE ourselves suffer. You take that viewpoint and God can exist along with all the evil you see in the world, while at the same time, the good you see in the world is our own doing, thankyouverymuch. I do not need a beardy sky-man to give me good grades, or help out a friend in need. I make that. And I make it because God let me.
Unfortunately, this film does not provide such an answer.
- Quote :
- When somebody dies... you can see the life leave them. I mean, Susan, when they’re gone... I can feel it. Can’t you feel it when they’re gone?
WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK???
Are you serious? Your proof of God is watching the light leave someone’s eyes? That sounds like the perverted motive for a serial killer! Not a Christian!
Anyway... back to El Tajin, 21 hours out.
A scientist is reading off of Wikipedia or something:
- Quote :
- The cross must be reunited with the great temple before the end of the long-count calendar.
[...]
Now, according to this, this cross is a part of the prophesy.
What prophesy? From where?
Nothing...
- Quote :
- This cross may play a key role in an historical event, thousands of years in the making! We have to get this to the temple before the end of the cycle!
Why?
These are Scientists, ladies and gentlemen. Scientists convinced that placing a magical cross in a mystical temple will do... Something.
Anyway earthquakes happen and we switch between characters with no subtitles this time.
We rejoin Sarah and Alex as they encounter a river full of dead fish... Alex comments that the river water is hot, and that volcanic activity could be causing it.
Have you any idea how much thermal energy it would take to heat an entire river to the point that fish would be dying in it and it would be hot to the touch? It’s about 7 metric shitloads, that’s how much!
- Quote :
- Volcanic activity must be heating the river... I saw it on the news this is happening in Hawaii
[...]
An increase in temperature would increase the bacteria level...
Yeah... And be the signifier of a fucking VEI-8 eruption, you dipshit! The entire planet would be on red alert if this was happening!
After a few pointless cutaways, Alex and Sarah enter Sarah’s village. It is deserted. She gets another phone call from her dad who, finally, explains the situation to her. She then emo’s over her purpose with Alex:
- Quote :
- Sarah: “I dunno, I men, what if I’m supposed to be here... What if this is God’s plan?”
Alex: “What if it was God’s plan for us to mee so I could get you out of here?”
I like Alex. And his argument works. The two wander off back to Alex’s car. (Which is just over the hill, despite them coming from the opposite direction.)
But then, out of fucking nowhere, Random T. Villager appears and gives a message that there is a sick girl somewhere, then disappears again, providing no explanation for his appearance or the disappearance of the rest of the village populace. Sarah believe that her being there to help the girl is God’s plan so Alex suddenly decided that Sarah is right and it is God’s plan for them both to help the girl. Off they go.
Back to San Diego, 17 hours to go.
Susan visits her mom. She has received word of a presedential order to evacuate the west coast, so she attempts to get her mom moving:
- Quote :
- Mom: “It’s the apocalypse, Susan, the end of days.
Poor Susan, her mom’s a nutjob.
I know stories of people who have cared for elderly relatives and have to go through whole imaginary episodes just to get the poor soles in their pyjamas, and now I see that Susan has the same problem...
But no... We are, actually, supposed to related to mom, and empathise with her quasi-suicidal notion that sitting around and waiting for death to some is the correct course of action while fighting for survival is undesirable, and Susan should be talked out of it.
I hate this fucking movie!
Then a plot point gets dropped like a fucking brick: The news shows some Mayan temple in Chichen-itza.
- Quote :
- ”Look, Susan, it’s the pyramid, from your dreams...”
- Quote :
- Susan: ”I saw a man with a tattoo of that today... I couldn’t save him...”
Mom: “Maybe God is trying to tell you something...
Yup, that’s it... The final message from our great heavenly father: Lie down and die, the rest of your life is pointless...
FUCK YOU MOVIE!!!
Back to the specialarcheologists... They notice that it is daylight, but it is, infact, after midnight.
- Quote :
- ”It’s the end of the long count cycle. The Myans predicted it perfectly...
First off, the end of the long-count calendar signifies nothing more than “It is time to make a new calendar”. Secondly, how the hell have these people suddenly jumped to the conclusion that the end of the calendar and their magic quest to reunite the improbable Christian artefact with a pagan temple is a predictor of the slowing of the earth’s rotation?
Jeez, this film is daft.
Back to the scientists...
- Quote :
- Australia just saw the largest typhoon ever recorded and in Mexico, there’s a low pressure system unlike anything you’ve ever seen...
Yes, these lines are brought to you practically verbatim, from Day After Tomorrow.
Susan has suddenly decided that she needs to get to the pyramid. She’s brought her mom along for the lulz.
- Quote :
- Mom: “Why can’t you see that He wants you to be with Him?
Susan: “It doesn’t make any sense, mom. Science can justify everything you claim God has done...
And yet, you’re embarking on a suicidal quest to your magical dream-temple because...?
Back to the special archaeologists (I still don’t know their names) and one of them dies in an utterly inexplicable, but fucking hilarious way. There’s a car crash and somehow we then jump to one guy about to fall down a hole but stopping himself by hanging on to one end of the crucifix, while the others are grasping on to the other. He says that he’d better let go, all they’ll all die. There is no evidence for this, but he lets go and falls to his death anyway... Once again, a blatant attempt to rip-off a scene from Day After Tomorrow. Only in that film the one guy’s self-sacrifice has meaning, we know who the character was and he actually was risking the other people’s lives should they attempt to rescue him. In this case, we have no clue who the guy is, and there is no evidence that their attempts to save him could be dangerous.
In the meantime, Sarah and Alex find some pregnant lady and they too head to Chichen-itza, because it is in the prophesy, or something.
- Quote :
- Alex: “She needs medical assistance!”
Alex is back on the side of reason again.
- Quote :
- Sarah: No, we gotta take her to the temple.
WHY?
- Quote :
- This is happening for a reason, I can feel it!
Alex provides a whole horde of reasons to take the girl to the city, (We don’t even know if we can get to the temple, the weather is getting bad, she’s in bad shape, you’re doing this on the back of some random village boy, we’re fucked etc] but he is swayed by Sarah’s counter argument:
- Quote :
- Something is happening here. I can’t explain it, I can’t rationalise it, but I can feel it.
A phone conversation with dad later, and soon everyone is on the way to Chichen-itza.
Suddenly, Dad is in a plane with some random pilot... Amazingly, this pilot is a devout fundie (imagine that), and the two have another “God lets bad things happen, but they have a reason” conversation.
After flying through a storm, the Pilot states that it was his job to get him this far... And that he’s got a car ready and waiting for him. Why?
Who really cares?
Then Susan’s car breaks down, and her mom vanishes... Yup... It’s the rapture, people. The most bone-headed stupid part of evangelical belief, and the one person ‘caught up’ was the ‘lie down and die’ enthusiast, who has done nothing by attempt to convince her daughter to curl up and die along with her.
Movie, seriously, fuck you.
Oh, and also the pilot disappears too.
Dad, (Sarah’s Dad that is) just happens to pull up alongside her, and the two both wander off to Chichen-itza together. Because, maybe they’re supposed to figure this out together....
Oh, and then Trish, one of the special archaeologists, dies. But who gives a shit... She had no personality and no purpose in this film.
Dad and Susan have a conversation about the rapture.
- Quote :
- I’m Lloyd, by the way.
Well, thankyou movie. We’re only one hour three mins in and finally you give us the name of the last of your protagonists.
Sarah, Alex and pregnant girl drive through a hailstorm. It’s pretty funny. None of the hailstones hit the car (because animating particle effects of a moving model is expensive,) and whenever we get a shot from inside the car, the view from out the windows (like the rear) show no hailstones at all. Brilliant SFX guys... Seriously, I’ve seen straight to TV short dramas with better CGI, or at least a better knowledge of how to use them effectively.
Despite thousands of hailstones raining down on the road, only one hits the car, smashes though the windscreen and blowing a hole through Alex’s chest, and the one guy I had partial respect for dies. But before he dies, he claims that he believes. Thus justifying Sarah’s earlier note that everyone on their death bed automatically reverts to Christianity.
Fuck off, movie.
Finally, the last remaining archaeologist gets to Chichen-itza and uses the cross as a key to open up a new chamber in the temple revealing an altar.
He reads the Mayan hieroglyphs (or was it cuneiform? I dunno. I think I care about this stuff more than the movie does) from the altar:
- Quote :
- at the end of the great cycle, when the sun sets, a woman will give birth at this alter, and this will bring together the chosen messengers of Christ.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was inscribed in give or take 600AD, in a country untouched by Christianity. And we’re supposed to buy this...
Everyone arrives, Sarah, the Paramedic’s purpose is revealed... Although the only medical knowledge she has about childbirth is the phrase “She’s fully dilated”, which is so important she repeats it over and over.
The world ends, and the child spouts forth amidst a circle of the survivors all holding hands and preying to the Lord’s magnificent power...
Slow-mo close-up montage finale and...
Nothing... End of film, credits roll.
So, what was the message? That to be caught up in the rapture and be saved from a hellish existence on an impossibly un-rotating world, one must give up all attempts at survival and resign oneself to death?
FUCK THAT NOISE!
This film sucked. It was poorly written, badly executed and terribly acted. The special effects were laughable, the science was insane, the characters were badly presented and undeveloped and the final message is pointless.
I paid £6 for this shyte!
Well. That’s it. Thanks for reading. I’ll be back at some point in the future with another review of a bad film soon.
Cheers
Kev.
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