I vowed I wouldn't see this movie, I promised myself I would never, ever see it. Well, I saw it. I did so for two reasons... One was Roger Ebert's 3 and a half star review of it. If Ebert gives it a good rating, I'll see it. The other reason was that NASA confirmed that the world won't end in 2012 so I feel safe going to see it. As it turns out, 2012 is trying to make more of a political statement than a prediction of the apocalypse. The only good thing about the first 30 minutes of this movie was John Cusack who is amazing in pretty much every movie he's in, but unfortunately doesn't appear until about the 20 minute mark. Before that it is mainly unintelligible sciencey nonsense. It felt exactly the same as the beginning of The Day After Tomorrow. I felt you could have even taken some scenes out of the beginning of this movie and put it into the beginning of The Day After Tomorrow and I wouldn't have noticed it came from another movie. It starts with a single abnormality in the temperature of an area. Then it involves telling the government, thankfully the government actually believes the scientist in this movie, unlike in The Day After Tomorrow but this isn't a comparison essay it's a review of 2012. So you get past the stupid, meaningless and unneeded exposition and suddenly Woody Harrelson shows up with more premonitions of the apocalypse, but this time I didn't mind it because... well... because it's effin' Woody Harrelson for pete's sake. Then you get to that fateful day you've been waiting for since the beginning of the movie. It starts simply with an Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator who says the worst of environmental troubles are over suddenly there is a huge earthquake literally splitting Los Angeles in half. While that is going on, one the best action sequences of the year ensues with Cusack driving his family through the whole mess in a limo. For the next hour and a half there is almost nothing but straight up action, sure there are a few "serious" talking scenes, but I tried mostly to ignore them because of the mediocre dialogue (then again John Cusack can make most of the lines sound convincing enough). Going back to the action, this movie has some of the best special effects I've ever seen in a movie and there are more of them than any movie I've ever seen as well. As you see national monuments such as the Washington Monument destroyed it looks surprisingly real. Surprisingly there are some good performances sprinkled in this less-mindless than usual action film. I enjoyed John Cusack (obviously), Woody Harrelson (I already mentioned him too), Danny Glover as the president, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and I also though Liam James showed some early talent as John Cusack's son (he sure beats Jake Gyllenhaal in The Day After Tommorow). On the opposite side of the spectrum I hated, hated, hated, Oliver Platt as Carl Anheuser, he is the villain of the movie, but even he started being evil he pulled me out of the movie with his terrible line delivery. The Carl Anheuser character is representing big business and its involvement with the government, no one of authority shows up on the plane so who takes over, Anheuser. While the president is portrayed as a noble caring man, Anheuser makes sure that only billionaires will be able to survive after the apocalypse. He also sets up a very intriguing conspiracy to stop the world from finding out about the apocalypse. After all this business with who is being saved and who is not, I felt the final 20 minutes are very anti-climatic. The world had just ended and the movie continued with a climax that seemed so minuscule in comparison to the end of the world it made me laugh. Also, a fact revealed in the last minute of the film almost makes the previous hour pointless, which upset me quite a bit, but it was made up for entirely by the previous hour. When I reflect on this movie it just seems like a huge (158 minutes) mash-up of Titanic, Poseidon (I swear one scene was taken directly out of Poseidon, you'll know it when you see it), The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, and there's many more but I just can't place my finger on them. Surprisingly, it works, amazingly in fact. It's much better than any of that Michael Bay, Transformers crap, and it more than makes up for 10,000 BC, director, Roland Emmerich's last film. 2012 is huge in every way and it is really a great time at the movies.
2012 - 4 out of 4
-Zach
Note: I like The Day After Tomorrow, I'm neutral towards Independence Day, and I hate 10,000 BC.
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