The Science of 2012

We’re seeing a lot fewer mad scientists in major Hollywood films today, and a lot more scientist heroes. In 2012, the hero is Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who is–and this cracked me up–a “deputy geologist” at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Well, at least they got the office name right, though geologists have their own agency. Later, Helmsley becomes the top science adviser to the president. And for good reason: He is the guy who makes the US government wake up and see the catastrophe that is coming; he is the guy who runs the models to try to figure out just when it will arrive and how bad it will be–even though these models aren’t perfect and often have to be revised, always in the it’s-even-worse direction (an interesting analogy with climate change models). Helmsley’s virtue–a uniquely scientific one–lies in the fact that he fully and honestly admits as much. In one moment that anybody who cares about science in policy will love, Helmsley explains one of these recalculations to POTUS (Danny Glover) in the Oval Office, and admits, “I was wrong.” The president replies (these are not his exact words) “That’s the first time anybody has ever said that in this office.” Yup, that’s the virtue of having scientists in government.

I’m seeing the movie later tonight. The WaPo gives it 4 stars, calling it a perfect disaster, “enormously satisfying, astonishingly accomplished, reprehensible-yet-irresistible ‘2012,’ the crowning achievement in Emmerich’s long, profitable career as a destroyer of worlds.”

As it happens, I had lunch in LA today. Wired says that I will thoroughly enjoy seeing it destroyed:

Much of this film is animated, but it’s virtually impossible to tell. In particular, the destruction of Los Angeles is a visual feast. It is an accomplishment in action filmmaking. This scene highlights Emmerich’s childlike glee as a filmmaker: It’s impossible for a car to fly as the ground crumbles underneath, but it happens in this world. Truth be told, it’s a cinematic representation of Nintendo’s Mario running across collapsing bridges. Above all, it’s funny.

The Seattle PI is less enamored, saying it’s only slightly more big and fun than dumb. The NYTimes’ Manohla Dargis had no fun. She found the film’s formulaic destruction a tired retread:

[Emmerich] cracks the planet like a nut, splitting its crust, toppling its mountains and cities, and laying its every creeping thing to inevitable tedious waste. Maybe he’s angry. (His last movie, “10,000 B.C.,” was widely panned.) To judge from the similarity with which he stages the multiple disaster sequences in “2012” — a limo, a camper, a plane, a bigger plane and some really big boats, by turns, race ahead of the impending doom — he seems exhausted.

So far the folks at Rotten Tomatoes agree. At a lowly 37%, it gets no tomato!

Meanwhile, Newsbusters is busting-a-nut over their assertion that 2012 star John Cusack may (or may not) have dropped an f-bomb on The Morning Show. I’m in the not camp, “Some mornings yeah, uh I can feel…”