..the
Titanic, you really just want the boat to sink and take Leonardo and Kate down
with it – the plot and exposition get in the way of the cataclysm.
The critical mind will find there are plenty of moments during the movie to
wander and contemplate what the rest of the world might be doing. Reading a
good book? Going to the Opera? What happens if you leave the iron on for four
hours? But it isn’t a movie for the critical mind – it is a movie for
the lowest common denominator in us all. The lizard brain is engaged, the cerebellum
slipped into neutral and we prepare, not for the raving of the preacher fulminating
fire and brimstone from the pulpit, but Saturday evening at ‘the pitchas’.
There is a particular frame of mind where the critical faculties are left at
the door to the cinema and you become a something close to a vaguely sensate
vegetable. A significant percentage of the people in attendance had to make
no effort to do this as they lumbered impassively behind their stomachs and
giant vats of popcorn.
This was Eastland – soon to be renamed Wasteland. Or even ‘No Waistband’.
The Bermuda Triangle of the Eastern suburbs where taste and intellect mysteriously
disappear in a welter of fast food and discount shops. It’s called Eastland
because all the junk in China ends there.
The science in 2012 is nonsensical: in defiance of the known laws of physics
neutrinos are being spilled from mega sunspots, mysteriously gaining mass and
heating up the Earth’s core. The continents and tectonic plates are about
to drift like croutons on thick tomato soup and for most of the world’s
population it is going to end rather badly.
Yellowstone erupts (not the best CGI moment in the movie), California slides
quite wonderfully into the sea and an aircraft carrier – the John F Kennedy
– lands on the President of the United States.
Most of the world’s population perishes – except for the select few. Naturally
the hero, played by John Cusack, who, the IMDB database with no apparent irony,
describes as “repelled by formulaic Hollywood fare”, survives along
with his estranged wife, two children, the obligatory fluffy dog and maybe the
Mona Lisa.
Unlike other movies of its ilk there is no sense of biblical punishment; we
are spared the conjecture that humanity has been the cause of its own demise
through moral turpitude or too many SUVs parked in the driveway.
This is an arbitrary, capricious and disinterested fate – something that
a universe ruled by pyrotechnicians may well do once in a while.
Religion proves no refuge – the faithful massed at St Peters are crushed beneath
Donato Bramante’s rolling dome and Tibetan Buddhists are washed away by
the tidal surges in the Himalayas.
Some brief comfort to atheists, but not to the faithful. No faith is spared
and no denomination comforted. Only the rich and the genetically and intellectually
fit are chosen for survival.
Despite the masterly attention to detail, ultimately the special effects fail
to convince, because not all the effects are convincing. We glimpse desperate
little figures pathetically holding on to the remaining section of the floors
of skyscrapers as the building topple majestically into another falling giant
structure – there is little shying away from the fact that for most of
the world’s population their final moments are going to be full of fear,
anxiety and pain – but if a fireball does not properly collide with the ground
like a shell from Big Bertha our belief remains suspended.
We know we are watching something rather clever, megaflops of computing power
and terabytes of data are being deployed for our amusement, but we remain unengaged.
This makes an interesting comparison to the original King Kong, where the stop-motion
effects, when judged by today’s computer generated standards, should seem
rather sad and pathetic. But I believe that they are ultimately more involving
because they are consistent and say, much like radio, ‘engage your imagination’.
You are required to participate in this fabrication of this cinematic world.
You are an active participant in the illusion not a passive onlooker.
Kong who in bug-eyed splendour in the original and unedited version of the film,
undresses Far Wray and then delicately sniffs his finger, seems more genuinely
tragic and worthy of our sympathy than Peter Jackson’s more realistic
remake.
Magicians make their audience complicit in the illusion. If the illusion is
nothing more than the illusion we are left – well, disillusioned. We must
be carried along with the dread and fear, brought into believing in a world
where we are left unsettled, uncomfortable and our beliefs either challenged
or reinforced.
Great art is not about shock and awe; it is a complicit agreement between the
audience, and the art to create something together. The onlooker is an active,
not passive, part of the experience.
2012 is like the vast vats of popcorn the audience consumes, expensive, excessively
large and pointless – but enjoyable at the time.