A lot of absolutes being thrown around in here - "basic Japanese" is not a 0 or 100% thing! We could step back and have a discussion on what basic Japanese is, and I bet we would not even be able to agree on that.
With two months, there is some basic Japanese you could acquire if you are focused and have realistic expectations.
1. Reading things on signs/etc. Will be extremely difficult - you need a good chunk of kanji for this, and if you're starting from scratch, you're not going to have enough time to prioritize kanji to the point that it'd be "useful".
2. Speaking/listening, on the other hand - this is something you can do if, as @Norkestra noted, you focus on high-value targets. There's a lot of interactions that travelers make (hotel, restaurants, shopping), that have a, relative to a "free-for-all" conversation with someone, rather limited number of expressions and phrases that are used 90% of the time. So, if you focus on some of the basic grammar sentence structures with additional focus on thinking about what you may need to say and trying to come up with those sentences ahead of time, you'll be able to have a non-zero amount of Japanese interaction.
3. Conversations, though, will most likely be rather difficult unless you have someone who is willing to dip into English when Japanese is not cutting it. However, it *can still be done* with the right mindset. I have a friend who has studied much less than 2 months, but is able to *communicate* with Japanese people through perseverance, a lot of smiling, and an understanding of certain topics that will simply be too difficult.
Language learning is not a "if I do my best, it'll work out" kind of thing when you put time limits on it. But with determination and time, you can obviously get SOMETHING acquired in two months. The key is making sure it's not scattered evenly across all Japanese, but the stuff you are most likely to use.
