'2012': trailer preview

The trailer for Roland Emmerich's forthcoming '2012' looks utterly insane. Check it out here...

To tie in with the release of the new ‘Transformers’ movie, we at Time Out ran a feature on the most OTT movies of all time. But, judging from the first trailer released today, every one of the films on that list is about to be overshadowed by Roland Emmerich’s return to the disaster genre, ‘2012’, a film that promises to make ‘Transformers’ look like ‘On Golden Pond’.

Roland Emmerich is a master of anticipation, though his films often struggle to live up to the hype. With the notable exception of 1996’s magnificent ‘Independence Day’, his later films, from ‘Godzilla’ to ’The Day After Tomorrow’, have arrived on our screens loaded with promise, until you realise all the good stuff was in the trailer, and the rest consists of big-name actors spouting ludicrous declamatory dialogue as the world crumbles noisily around them.

Could ‘2012’ be any different? Due in November, the film depicts the wholesale destruction of the planet Earth as foretold in the ancient Mayan calendar. A strong cast of reliable B-listers – notably John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Woody Harrelson and Danny Glover – play the various scientists and government types attempting to stem the tide of global mayhem.

Quite frankly, the trailer is magnificent: it’s been a long time since we witnessed destruction on this kind of scale. There’s meteors raining fire, tsunamis drowning major cities, skyscrapers crumbling and a spectacular stunt with an aircraft carrier, while Emmerich’s trademark shot of a major landmark exploding claims the Sistine Chapel as its latest victim. Whether the film itself is any good seems almost academic in the face of this magnificent visual onslaught, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed just the same.

Watch '2012' trailer

---