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2012: Doomsday
Directed by Nick
Everhart
Released: 2008
Starring Cliff De Young, Dale Midkiff, Ami Dolenz, Danae Nason
Running Time: 92 minutes
Reviewed by Nafa
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It’s the end of the world and
who do you want to watch try to save humanity? Why, the duder from
Time Trax,
the daughter of a Monkee, any actress that was in
Transmorphers
(yes, that’s
TransMORPHers),
and Cliff De Young. So I’m going to try to keep this as coherent as possible
and speed through the storylines rather than cut between them as it does in
the film so they make more sense. To be honest this film really excites me
in ways few others have.
A little background, I am a total mark for films about eschatology, the
Apocalypse, and general End Times stuff. If it’s an epic disaster movie I’m
all about it, and naturally when I saw that there was a 2012 film on NetFlix
that I could watch on demand, I was set. An added bonus was finding out
during the opening credits that the movie was produced by Faith Films
(producer of such titles as
Evil,
Countdown: Jerusalem,
and…erm…
Sunday School Musical),
which should have been a big clue as to what to expect.
Our story begins 36 hours before Doomsday (there’s a constant countdown
reminder cut between scenes) with Dale 'Time
Trax’ Midkiff excavating
an ancient Mayan temple as earthquakes and volcanoes rage all around him.
Unexpectedly, his ex-wife-who-happens-to-be-a-fellow-scientician shows up
(sorry for that spoiler) and conflict ensues. After some tense bantering, an
assistant runs in and says that a third chamber has opened in the temple
because of the seismic activity so our merry band runs off to explore it.
Inside they find a huge gold crucifix, which brings the greatest line in
movie history, ‘The Christians were here before Columbus!’ Anyway, they grab
the cross, escape the temple before it collapses, watch their assistant get
crushed by a giant rock, and then casually decide they have to go to
Chichen-Itza.
Meanwhile, Cliff De Young is some sort of weathermatician with the power to
tell the president to evacuate the entire west coast of America. He tells
everyone that the Earth’s rotation is going to stop in 24 hours or so and
that we’re all screwed—earthquakes, hurricanes, snow, the entire ‘Bad Moon
Rising’’ stuff that John Fogerty predicted when he was with Creedence.
Babble, babble, blah blah. He calls his daughter who is a missionary in
Mexico (I want to say Vera Cruz, but I don’t recall for sure) to tell her to
get to Oklahoma for safety. More on her in a second.
Enter the San Diego paramedic in the form of Danae Nason (fresh of the set
of
Transmorphers).
She’s is sitting idly by drawing pictures of pyramids and crosses for no
reason. She gets a phone call and is sent to the scene of a drive-by
shooting only to discover that the victim has a tattoo of the same
cross/pyramid thing she was drawing. He dies, she has a crisis about God
letting good people die, yackity yack. Her partner, a rather fey ambulance
driver, tries to witness to her a bit, but they are suddenly interrupted by
a giant fault line opening up in the street. She decides to grab her mom and
head to Chichen-Itcha. The countdown clock is somewhere around 20 hours by
now.
Cut to a blond missionary in short shorts looking for a doctor to help her
sick village in Vera Cruz (I think). It’s Ami Dolenz! She can’t find a
doctor but she does find a photojournalistesian who ‘took some medical
classes’ at university. They head back to the village, during which she gets
a call from her dad telling her to get to Oklahoma ASAP, but she insists she
has to get back to her village because everyone is sick (she’s OK because
she’s a vegetarian…no, really). However, when she gets to the village it’s
empty—they’ve all gone somewhere else. I either fell asleep or didn’t quite
get/care what was happening. Missionary and Dr. Photo run into one person
who says there’s a pregnant woman who needs their help so they go get her.
Thankfully, Dr. Photo parked his car in the jungle near the preggo’s hut, so
all was good and they decide to take a road trip to Chicken-Pizza.
Back to the scientician—basically their car gets eaten by the Earth, a snow
storm starts, and he and his ex-wife have a tender, beautiful reconciliation
(which is enhanced even more by the appearance of the camera tracking rails
at the bottom of the shot). She dies of exposure and he heads on to the
temple. He’s first! (However, from looking at it it looks like he made it to
Altun Ha in Belize, which I have visited, and not Chucken-Ibiza in Mexico.)
Cliff De Young gets a call from
his missionary daughter who says she’s going to the temple, so he decides
screw Oklahoma, he’s going to Mexico! Thankfully his friend has a small prop
plane that will fly through monsoons, snowstorms, volcanic ash, and general
apocalypse. So he’s on his way. He lands in presumably Cancun or Merida and
finds a car with keys in it waiting at the airport. The pilot (a Christian
apparently…or a ghost) disappears. Nope, wait—it was just the Rapture. Cliff
is on his way to the temple.
Paramedic and mother drive from San Diego to Chuck-Mangionitza, which from
looking at Google Maps, is about 1,800 miles. Not bad for Mexican roads and
less than 14 hours left. I guess in 3 years Carmry’s can do a consistent
130mph plus without stopping for gas. But the car does eventually break down
and she is stranded on the side of the road. Poof goes mom—she got all
Raptured out too. Thankfully, Cliff swings by and gives her a ride and they
head to the temple.
Dr. Photo, preggers, and the missionary (who I presume wasn’t Raptured out
because she is willing to admit she’s descended from a Monkee) hit a hail
storm that doesn’t damage the car but is causing havoc in many a pixilated
way. However, one of the myriad of hailstones breaks the windshield and ends
up lodged in Dr. Photo’s chest. He dies (not sure if it’s from frostbite or
the puncture wound) but not before he’s able to say a deathbed sinner’s
prayer. She shoves him over to the passenger’s seat and continues the drive
to the temple.
The scientician figures out that the cross is a key and can open a secret
altar inside the temple. There he reads the prophecy of a child who is to be
born on the altar and stands looking perplexed. Enter missionary and
preggers, and right after that Cliff and paramecium…I mean paramedic. Long
story short, the baby gets born, the paramedic is there to deliver it, the
missionary says a prayer, and the Earth starts spinning again. End on a long
pull back shot from overhead looking down on a completely unrelated pyramid
in the middle of the jungle with no visible roads for dozens of miles in any
direction. The end.
Postscript—I’m going to assume that since they were still stranded in a
temple, the two men fought each other for dominance (I would say
Time Trax
beat Cliff), the three women became his love slaves, and they ate the baby.
And then started a new race of Mayans who quickly spread and took over the
recently ravaged Earth. The real end.
As an apocalyptic film this is moderately interesting. As a witnessing tool
it’s so laughable that it’s probably detrimental if you’re trying to win
over people to Christ. Duders, try
Super Christian or something, but not this.
However, as a testament to a company whose web address ends in .cc, it’s the
best thing I’ve ever seen. Walk, don’t run, to NetFlix to see this. Perhaps
I was just drunk off of Zaxby’s and Tab, but it sat right.
Amen.
Links
Less interesting and better quality trailer
More interesting and worse quality trailer
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