Concrete Playground

In 1996, me and my friends skipped school to see Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day as soon as it opened. Aliens blew up the White House, Randy Quaid drove a cropduster right into the mothership and Will Smith punched an alien the face and said, “welcome to Earth” while chewing on a cigar.  For my teenage boy brain this was the apotheosis of cinema. Citizen Kane for hormonal idiots.

But since then, in a post 911 world (yeah, I said it) the idea of state monuments blowing up and the world in a state of chaos seemed to lose its fantastical edge. Emmerich's follow ups (10,000 BC, Eight Legged Freaks, The Day After Tomorrow) failed to hit the mark in quite the same way.
Until now.

2012 is awesome, absolute destructo-porn. As far as mindless destruction goes, it outranks anything you’ve ever seen. Everything blows up. Plus all the performers are solid and no one seems to be taking it too seriously. Even the ridiculous, pseudo-scientific, plot is surprisingly plausible.

The movie may divide people who don’t really go for this kind of thing. But if you went “Holy be-jesus!” when you saw the trailer, then the movie does exactly what it says on the box. For me, it’s hard to imagine anything matching the sheer silliness, mass destruction and spasmodic glee of this movie. But that’s what I thought in 1996.
And they even blow up the White House again.