2012

Viewer Rating:mart1n has rated 2012 rating: 2 Star

If there is one thing Roland Emmerich is good at it's destruction. He has destroyed the biggest cities in Earth many times before with dinosaurs, aliens and even Global Warming. And now after his failed attempt at tackling history with the dire 10,000 B.C Emmerich is back blowing things up and this time he really ups the anti with the whole world felling the wrath of Emmerich. At this stage I think the question everyone is asking is what the hell did the world ever do to him? And it would be an understandable question to ask as he does make quite a mess in this one. In 2012 the Mayans prediction that the end of the world will come about on December 21st 2012 is made a reality. Radiation from the sun increases and melts the Earth's core resulting in worldwide volcanoes, floods, sinking cities and gigantic cracks in the crust. The film follows John Cusack (typical divorced dad resented by family who becomes indestructible) as he tries to keep his family alive, and get them on board the arcs made to survive the worlds demise. Now despite being given the chance to do whatever he wanted to to the world Emmerich has somehow managed to make the end of the world extremely dull. It's difficult to say exactly where the film went wrong as I think it might've been a combination of things. I'm inclined to think the main problem was the obvious lack of action. In the film Emmerich tackles family issues and the whole idea of humanity and how people become expendable and all that. Now don't get me wrong, have no problem with him trying to give the film some emotional depth but the film was consumed by these ideas and it soon became unbearably tedious. Also the films runtime was unnecessarily long at 158 minutes (that's 2 hours 38 minutes, you can stop calculating). For a film to be this ling it has to be a lot more entertaining, or at least good. If 2012 was a character driven, beautifully tragic film headed for Oscar glory than by all means make it this long but when I watch a film about the end of the world I expect to be subjected to a mindless, ridiculously over the top action film. But the drama took over from the action and if 10,000 B.C thought us anything it's that Roland Emmerich cannot write anything dramatic. This caused the film to cross the line into the hilariously absurd, a line last crossed by The Happening. And just as The Happening did back then with the line about hot dogs, 2012 has also provided possibly the worst line of year "Why don;t you download my blog". But to be fair it's not all bad. The special effects are stunning throughout, although America sinking into the sea looked a bit like the end of Titanic. Now by my rules for marking blockbuster films this one does not do too well. The special effects, plot, relatively good cast performances and little bit of originality get it four stars. Then we take away two for awful direction and and the lack of excitement. So all in all this film had the potential to be a fantastic blockbuster but it was handled poorly and as a result was incredibly dull. Imagine Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow mashed together with less action ad much more death, drama and cheesy, patriotic speeches. So if you are really in need of a thrilling blockbuster as I was when I gave this a shot than you will not enjoy it. You'd be far better off renting Star Trek or waiting for James Cameron's presumably amazing Avatar. Quite simply what I'm sating is do not make the same mistake I did as once you eventually see past the huge budget, death toll of billions of people and the John Cusack it is ultimately a horrible disappointment.

Review published on the 12 March 2010 18:01