2012 (2009)

Elevator Pitch.

Just as the Mayans predicted, in 2012 the earth’s crust is heating up and the population of earth is doomed except for a privileged few who may get to board vast vessels capable of surviving the conflagration. Amongst the possible survivors are a failed author, his estranged wife and children and her boyfriend, a Russian oligarch, his children, his girfriend and her dog, the clever geophysisist who had predicted the disaster, the US president’s daughter, a Tibetan monk and a chicken. Who will make it?

Content.

The possible survivors keep just ahead of disaster in a variety of transport means, but principally aircraft which allow them to look down on the disintigrating earth. We see well known buildings collapsing on the crowds, freeways falling apart and LA sliding into the sea, followed by lakes and rivers of molten lava and finally the tsunamis changing the face of what remains of the planet. But some people are on the enormous ships which have problems of their own. No nudity or sex,  just a bit of snogging.

A View.

The whole plot was so outrageous and so well presented that I was really engaged. However, it did not really please most of the critics or the general public one of the gripes being that there were extraneous plot strands which, if I read it right, were as a result of cuts to the final theatrical presentation. But that being said if you feel the need to watch the earth being destroyed you could probably not do better, so give it a go.