Film Review: 2012

(First published online on December 11, 2009)

How will you try to escape from human extinction when even the word survival has been eliminated to your vocabulary? How will you try to fight for your life when your greatest foe is the nature which is said to be the great equalizer? How will you preserve humanity when the most important thing is to save yourself above all else?

These are some of the questions that Director Ronald Emerich and writer Harald Kloser tried to point out in the Science Fiction film 2012. Story evolves as an American Geologist named Adrian Helmsley played by Chiwetel Ejiofor discovered an ultimate secret regarding the earth’s destruction which others relate from the Mayan Prophecy that states, in December 21, 2012, there shall be an alignment of the planets and sun which will create a large explosion of the solar flare thus affecting the movements of the solar system. From that point, the world will greatly be affected and its destruction will start from a series of massive earthquakes and heating of the core thus creating more lava which, in turn, will melt all ice caps that will produce a great flood. This flood will sink the entire land area of the world reaching the peak of the highest mountain, Mt. Everest. Everything will be destroyed and many lives will be sacrificed. However, people will still try to defy the odds and use their intellectual acumen to seek for ways on how to survive this great catastrophe. With their intelligence, what are the chances that they can survive this greatest onslaught of the nature? Only the film can tell.

One of the most terrifying films this year, 2012 will give you a mind-boggling experience that will hunt you and even your dreams. This sci-fi film, being well explained can really be believable. Here in the Philippines, it created an impact that since there was history involved in the movie; some Filipinos actually believed that the end will really be on 2012. Literary speaking, the story or plot of the film is simple and its ending is somewhat predictable. However, its special effects can grab the audience that you will be amazed simply by watching it. Computer-generated scenes showed various catastrophes happening from different setting proving that it happens around the globe. The movie highlighted on how the earth which is the home of all the living things started going down.

A perfect way to end 2009 is by watching movies like 2012 to let us be reminded of how nature can payback for what we have been doing. The most frightening enemy that can destroy this earth is people but people can also be the solution. By watching 2012, let us be reminded that end will really come if we never stop doing things that are harmful to our environment.