Translated material
Plan for the ninth wave
"2012" on screens in Moscow and around the world
In 2009, having descended into the deepest copper mine on the planet, scientist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejofor) is convinced that due to solar activity, irreversible changes have occurred in the earth's core, the planet is heating up from the inside, and very soon, or rather, in just over three years , in exact accordance with the ancient Mayan calendar, the world as we knew it will come to an end. And while the kind black President Wilson (Denny Glover) is trying to adequately prepare the nation for the end of history, the smarter big shots from the government are building in China (under the guise of a huge dam) several giant arks, the entrance to which will cost a billion euros and which will still not be able to accommodate everyone. And when the day of judgment does come, loser and “naive, undaunted optimist” Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), who at one time wrote a book that sold half a thousand copies (which did not prevent it from becoming one of Helmsley’s father’s favorite works, and subsequently this turns out to be an important fact), but for now, moonlighting as a limousine driver for the Russian oligarch Yuri Karpov (Zlatko Burich), he finds nothing better than to go in that very oligarchic limousine to Yellowstone National Park, where he will meet with a seemingly crazy, but actually understanding what happens better than others is radio host-conspiracy theorist Frost (Woody Harrelson, in this case strikingly resembling both the traveler Fyodor Konyukhov and Father Ivan Okhlobystin), who tells Curtis the whole truth and gives a map on which the place of departure of the arks is indicated. In the company of his own children, his ex-wife (Amanda Peet), her current husband (Thomas McCarthy), as well as Karpov, burdened by two plump twins, his young lover Tamara (Beatrice Rosen) and her dog, Curtis sets off on the most dangerous journey in the world - while entire cities around you are sliding into grandiose chasms, great lakes are shallowing before your eyes, and a tsunami is pouring over Everest.If anyone in Hollywood deserves the proud title of “master craftsman”, it is Roland Emmerich - it was under his leadership that the White House was blown up as a result of an alien attack in “Independence Day” (1996), the overgrown lizard left no stone unturned from Manhattan in Godzilla (1998), and global warming turned New York into a vast park of ice sculptures in The Day After Tomorrow (2004). It is thanks to him that the disaster film genre, which seems to have happily lived on for a long time along with the era of the 70s that gave birth to it, is still doing well today. And all because Emmerich, even in such a total destructive rage, adheres to the once and for all established rules: in addition to a portion of truly stunning special effects (the disarmament of Rio de Janeiro or the collapse of the dome of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, shown from all possible angles, are worth a lot in all possible meanings), the viewer will inevitably have to take to heart the personal experiences of the characters (and among them, in addition to those already mentioned, there is, for example, the president’s daughter, who begins an affair with Helmsley), their personal dramas and experiences, invented, however , without much imagination - well, of course, how can the central participant in a universal catastrophe be happy in marriage? Never. Actually, according to the laws of the genre, the planet is going to hell solely so that Curtis’s family will eventually be reunited, and his seven-year-old daughter will finally stop peeing in her pants. Who exactly will sacrifice themselves, who will do bad things and then die, who will be saved at the very last minute, you can guess long before the numbers that make up the title of the film appear on the screen. In the same way, the elementary authenticity of what is happening remains aside - of course, mobile phones work perfectly in a dying world, until the battery runs out or the subscriber is covered by a giant wave (the laws of physics, biology and all other natural sciences are not written by Emmerich and his comrades).
But it’s somehow strange to find fault with little things at a moment when civilization hangs by a thread. And in general, “2012” is not so much a film as a natural disaster in itself. It’s pointless to talk about characters and heroes: that’s not why they were invented and played. Describing and analyzing special effects is also somehow difficult - it’s like retelling Aivazovsky’s painting in your own words. It’s also somehow strange to look in the story about the planned rescue of the “golden billion” and the government villainies associated with it. So it turns out that instead of the film as such, there is a funnel of unimaginable size and fantastic meaninglessness on the screen, into which, no matter how you look at it, you still have to fall. And already on Monday it will be clear “how many of them have fallen into this abyss” - box office receipts around the world promise to be fantastic, even despite the fact that the film runs for almost three hours, which means the number of screenings at which people will see the next special effect apocalypse will be somewhat shortened.
And, perhaps, the only omission of the director of all this wampuka is that when the arks with survivors still cope with the violence of the elements, none of the heroes come onto the deck (and at least Curtis’s son, whose very apt name is Noah) , does not send a dove out of his hands into flight. And the dove does not return with the corresponding twig in its beak. And no loud and majestic cry is heard over the renewed world: “Assa!” In this case, it would be more useful than ever.