Maailman sortuessa

And here we have it, humanity is under threat. Two planets are hurtling towards Earth: Zyrus, a kind of "starter" that is supposed to miss the planet by a short distance but cause terrible disasters with its gravitational effects, and a few weeks later a bigger one, Bellus, set to collide directly with Earth. Doomsday is coming, one year to go, but while the rest of the world passively waits, the team around Dr. Randall, who was the first to publish a report on the destruction of mankind, is not idle and makes a deal with a billionaire to finance the construction of a "Noah's Ark", a spacecraft to transport a selected sample of humans and animals to another planet. Since it’s a purely private project, not a state project with the highest possible priority, what the rest of the world does is no longer an issue for the filmmakers. There is no other "Noah's Ark" along the lines of Randall's, no cooperation between states, no one is addressing anything except Randall. Even the creators' opinion of humanity as a disciplined mass is ridiculous. There is no looting, no panic, people simply wait for doomsday like fools and pray. At least that leaves time for a love story. So, the first danger is here! Zyrus. Scientists look at the clock, it's supposed to start at 13:00, but it's already 13:01 and still nothing....But it’s already beginning! With a minute of delay, bugger! Earthquake, sea level rising....Well, the timing down to the minute exactly is pretty ridiculous, but that's nothing compared to what's to come. When Bellus approaches, gravity isn't even an issue anymore. People look at the giant red blob coming down to earth, and Randall's team is just a week away from the collision and starting to get ready to leave. Packing feverishly, the lot is drawn: 32 women and 32 men, all white, no room for other races, Adolf would be delighted. It is only the day before the collision, when Bellus has already taken up most of the sky, that they board the ark. There's still plenty of time for all sorts of chatter and amorous sugar-coating. And the gravity? They don’t bother with it. The overload during the departure of the ship is solved by simply putting the crew members to sleep. There are spacesuits, they look like they're made of burlap with a drawstring. And the view from the ship of the landscape of another planet – the new home of humans – is unforgettable. The kitschy painted landscape seems to have fallen out of the Jehova’s Witnesses magazine The Watchtower. (11.04.2004)

It has many good things and I admire the courage of the creators who approached such heavy material already at the beginning of the 1950s. During the first two acts I even told myself that I was watching one of the best sci-fi films of its time, where the tension doesn’t rely on cheap circus attractions, but on a premise that generates a lot of empathy. That focus on the complex human factor in unprecedented situations is worthy of praise and is the base of strong motifs, but they are scattered in clumps in a short runtime and lack a coherent anchor. Emmerich could do wonders with this material, he knows how to work with characters on a chessboard like few others – provided the screenwriters keep in check his theatrical attempts at humour and physical nonsense like, among others, when a giant star is approaching Earth and people escape in rockets at the last moment, unaffected by gravity or heat. It’s far from bad and it does tell something about people, but, even considering the era it comes from, it suffers from an untapped potential. Anyway, after this solid appetiser, I’m seriously looking forward to seeing Roland sending the Moon against Mother Earth. 65% (01.11.2020)