Roland Emmerich's latest disaster epic begins with well-dressed American scientist Adrian Helmsley struggling to make his way through a chaotic Indian city. Emerging from the din and pouring monsoon rain, his taxi finally draws up to an old mansion, where a man called Satnam greets him, ushers him into the house and then takes him to a disused mine nearby, where they quickly descend into the earth.
The opening sequence doesn't offer anything new: a Westerner's encounter with an exotic Orient, complete with buzzing bazaars, clucking poultry and accented English. But Emmerich plays with the viewer's expectations: the lift doors open to reveal a state-of-the-art underground research facility, where Indian physicists - presided over by Satnam (British actor Jimi Mistry) - are busy investigating cataclysmic changes on the surface of the sun.
In 2012, it's outside the US that such a crucial scientific discovery is made, and we see an American scientist outdone by his Asian counterparts. There's hardly an Authoritative White Expert around.
'There's a sense of international community,' says British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who plays Helmsley, in the Spanish city of San Sebastian. 'One of the great stories in this film is that when faced with another threat, we are all part of the same collective - which is a theme in other films as well, but I think it's explored in more depth here.'
Shot last year, Emmerich's new film could be seen as a parting shot at the Bush administration. In the film, US president Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover) is seen discussing how to deal with the impending apocalypse, via live satellite conferences, with political leaders around the world. This time, the key to survival doesn't lie on US soil: in this modern-day reworking of the biblical tale of Noah's Ark, the vessels designed to save humanity are built and kept in China.
'When we were shooting the film it was still during the primaries [of the US presidential elections], so Harald [Kloser, co-screenwriter of 2012] and Roland obviously decided that something's going to happen in the elections,' says Ejiofor of the film's vision of an African-American president more inclined to consensual than confrontational politics.
'There's a feeling of hope and optimism, and the ability to deal with international relationships. People have invested not only in Barack Obama, but in a change of government direction that satisfies people who, over the past decade, have become increasingly worried.'
